What I Already Knew - Part Four
Title: What I Already Knew
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Klaine (with tiny mentions of Finchel)
Spoilers: none
Warnings: AU
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 25,570
Betas: the lovely Adi and Brittany who are pretty much the reason I a) entered the reverse bang in the first place and b) the fic actually got written at all
Summary: Prince Kurt Hummel and Princess Rachel Berry have been promised to each other since they were very, very young - the problem is, neither is really happy with this. And then Blaine, the Berry's’ stable boy, comes along and throws everything they’ve resigned themselves to into utter chaos.
Art: here! It’s absolutely stunning, I fell in love with it the instant I saw it and was lucky enough to be able to write for it :)
*
The days pass in that fashion. Kurt spends the mornings with Rachel, and then the afternoons with Blaine - he doesn’t have many duties to perform. Rachel seems to have cleared his schedule for him - Kurt tries to ask about it many times but is brushed off every single time.
Well, almost every time.
It’s the day before Kurt has to head home. They’re sitting in Rachel’s room, again, and have been chattering away nonstop for a few hours. Kurt tries again.
“Rachel, tell me - have you been making sure Blaine is free to see me? I mean, I appreciate it, but I’m a little confused. Isn’t he supposed to be working as a stable boy?”
“I, uh-” she looks anywhere but at Kurt.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Why, Rachel?”
“Because he wants to see you as much as you want to see him,” she blurts out. “I just… smoothed the way, a little.”
“You are ridiculous, Rachel. I love you, but you are ridiculous,” he says, smiling. “And besides, I’m not sure that that could possibly be true.”
Suddenly, his hands are very, very interesting to him.
“Oh, whatever could you mean, Kurt?” Rachel asks, clearly amused.
Kurt say nothing.
“Ku-urt,” she singsongs. “Spill.”
“I like him. A lot,” he says softly. “Maybe even - oh god I can’t say it. If I say it this is actually happening.” He covers his face with his hands. Rachel pokes him in the side.
“Hey!” he exclaims.
“Well tell me then!” she fires back.
“I maybe even love him. I don’t know, I’m so confused. This wasn’t supposed to happen, Rachel.”
“Ohmygod I knew it!” Rachel’s bouncing up and down, now. Kurt is mortified. He can’t believe he just told the girl he’s betrothed to that he’s in love with someone else. He narrows his eyes.
“Why on earth are you so excited about this? I love someone else, someone I can’t act on anything with. There is nothing to be happy about, here.” He sighs heavily.
“Who says you can’t act on it? I certainly won’t stand in your way.”
“Rachel, we are getting married. What part of that have you missed? I just have to suck it up, remember that, and enjoy spending time with him as a friend. That’s all I can do.” He scoffs bitterly. “Besides, I don’t even know if he’s gay. Let alone if he’d even be interested.”
Rachel laughs outright at that.
“Please don’t tell me your judgment of these things is that far off, Kurt. Honestly. He’s gay. And as for the latter, well, my sources tell me that’s not a problem. He takes every chance he gets to see you, you know. Every single one.”
Kurt holds up his hand, palm facing her.
“Rachel, please - stop. I can’t- I can’t let myself hope. It can’t happen,” he says sadly.
Rachel huffs out a breath, her frustration showing all over your face.
“You deserve happiness, Kurt. He makes you happy. I’ve seen it. He’s gay, and he’s interested. Trust me. I’ve seen the way he looks at you - like you make everything about his past okay. Like everything that brought him here is worth it because he met you. Even Finn’s noticed, and you know Finn. I don’t see why you can’t let him make you happy.”
“What’s the point?” Kurt says. She just doesn’t get it. “Why should I let myself be happy now, when it’ll just be taken away again?”
“Please. Just - just think about it. I’m begging you - ask him. I can’t tell you everything, it’s not my place; but you two need to really talk. We could make this work, I know it. You might be lonely, Kurt, but you aren’t alone. And you don’t have to be.”
She blinks back tears of her own, and Kurt feels guilty for snapping at her. She’s in the same boat; sometimes he forgets that.
“Oh, Rachel. Come here.”
She moves closer, and they cling to each other.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know you just want what’s best for me, but that’s not up to us. I know you cope by being overly social, but that’s not how I work. I can’t put myself on the line like that, I just can’t.”
“I love you, Kurt. And I just want you to be happy. Promise me you’ll try? For me?” she says, speaking into his shoulder.
“Okay. I promise.”
*
Leaving this time is hard. Harder than normal, at any rate. Kurt really doesn’t want to say goodbye to Blaine again - not when he’s promised Rachel that he’ll try to get Blaine to open up a little. He takes promises very, very seriously.
Just before they head off, he pulls Blaine into a full body hug.
“Come visit me soon, okay?” he whispers into Blaine’s ear.
The soft “of course” he receives in response makes him smile from ear to ear.
He tears himself away, and they leave.
*
Rachel cannot believe how stubborn her boys are being. Blaine has so far refused all her attempts to convince him to tell Kurt about his parentage, and Kurt point-blank refuses to pry. She’ll have to take matters into her own hands soon. She can’t tell Kurt, no - Blaine would never forgive her. He’s already cut up enough about letting it slip in the first place. She’ll have to be sneakier than that.
She just has to get them to confess to each other. She smiles to herself. She knows that Kurt feels trapped by his castle, and by her home. She needs to get him out of that - perhaps she could suggest a picnic out near one of the villages close by. Finn will help her organize it, she knows.
Excellent.
*
It’s surprisingly difficult to find somewhere to host a picnic for four royal teenagers. Well, three official ones but Blaine counts in her mind. Still, it’s tricky. She’s already arranged to stay with Kurt and Finn, that isn’t a problem at all. She’ll have to bribe a few guards; sweet-talk and bat her eyelashes at a few more. And that’s just so they can leave the castle without people raising an alarm.
She vaguely remembers a pretty little spot near a lake that they used to visit when they were much younger, but she doesn’t remember where it is, exactly. Of course, she can’t ask Kurt if he remembers - she can’t give this game away until they’re outside of the castle walls. Instead, she pours through the many maps they have in storage, hoping that a name will jump out at her. It takes her hours, but eventually she succeeds. Kiar Springs. She memorizes the route they’ll need to take, and carefully puts the maps back exactly as they were. It’s unlikely anyone would notice if they were out of place slightly, but she’s not risking anything. Not this time.
*
When the time comes for her to put her plan into action, everything goes surprisingly smoothly. She manages to convince Kurt and Blaine rather easily to come for a ride, and they all are fairly happy to go where she leads. She has a good sense of direction, so there’s no worry from anyone about getting lost. Finn has the food packed into a saddlebag - there’s enough that they will eat well, but not so much as to cause suspicion.
They ride for nearly two hours at a steady pace, and she finally spots Kiar Springs. It’s just as gorgeous as she remembers.
“Wow,” Blaine says.
“Rachel, you remember this place too? I used to adore coming here,” Kurt says. His eyes are darting around him, unsure what to look at first. Rachel grins.
“I did. I wanted it to be a surprise. We brought a picnic!”
They find somewhere to tether the horses and then set up in a rough circle on the ground. They eat, and talk, and laugh. Rachel thinks her plan is working perfectly. Everyone is relaxed and happy. Time for the last stage of her plan to get her boys talking.
“I think I want to go for a walk. Finn, are you coming?” she says.
“I just want to lie here- ow” Rachel elbows him sharply. “Yes, yes okay I’m coming.”
They walk off, Rachel making sure to throw Kurt a little wave over her shoulder. She drags Finn just far enough away that she can still hear them, faintly, and then sits behind a nearby tree.
*
“Why do I feel like this whole trip has been planned for that exact moment?” Blaine asks, glancing in the direction Finn and Rachel had walked in.
“Because it was,” Kurt says simply. “Rachel thinks she’s so sneaky, and so clever, but I knew she was aiming for this as soon as she decided we were all going riding. I do have to admire her choice of location though - that was a nice touch.”
They smile at each other for a moment, happy to sit in silence.
“So. Rachel might be the least subtle person I’ve ever met, but since she has so nicely set us up with some privacy, we should take advantage of it,” Blaine says, motioning for Kurt to move closer. “Although, I can see a Finn-sized thing right behind that tree, so we might want to go take care of that first. Or we could just talk really loudly about how ridiculous Rachel is…”
Kurt giggles, and covers his mouth with his hands to stifle the sound. “I’ll go take care of her,” he says.
He walks over, quickly, and calls out, “Rachel! If you go to all this trouble to get us to talk, you’d better actually disappear right about now.” He hears her shriek of laughter, and then the shapes behind the tree do indeed move. He shakes his head, and returns to Blaine. “So…”
“So?” Blaine asks.
“Look. She’s going to keep doing this. I know what she wants me to say, and I’m sure you do too. So can we just… do this? Talk properly, I mean. We’re friends, right? Friends do that, apparently,” Kurt’s voice is teasing, but he knows that Blaine can see he’s serious. It’ll be nice to have everything out in the open. He hopes, anyway.
Blaine is silent, and his expression turns serious.
“Of course you’re my friend, Kurt. You don’t need to ask me that.” He pauses. “Can you go first, though? And please, only tell me if you want to - not just that Rachel does.”
“I do, Blaine - it’s just hard to say out loud. I - I like you, Blaine. And I don’t mean as a friend. I just feel stuck, because I’m marrying Rachel. She’s been pushing and I don’t understand,” Kurt says.
Blaine’s staring at him. The corners of his mouth turn up into a smile - a smile that is threatening to take over his whole face.
“Kurt, come here.” He holds his arms out, and Kurt lets himself be pulled into a hug. “I liked you like that the first moment I saw you, Kurt.” They cling to each other for a moment, and then pull back quickly. They’re both blushing, and Kurt is the first to speak.
“So, uh. Was that what you wanted to tell me too? Did she know about both of us all this time?”
Blaine laughs. “Yeah, she saw straight through me right away. I’m not exactly the most subtle person either - we have that in common, Rachel and I.”
“So what now?” Kurt asks, and he can feel the sadness overtaking him again. “Nothing has changed, not really,” he says.
“We do what we’ve been doing. I’m not about to let this change our friendship, Kurt. I need you. And I think you need me too,” Blaine says. “We don’t have to make this a big deal - not unless we want it to. That- that actually wasn’t what I wanted to tell you,” he continues, his voice faltering.
“It wasn’t?” Kurt asks. What else could Rachel have been getting at?
Blaine shakes his head. “I don’t even know that there’s an easy way to say this. I’ve told you that I was raised by my mother on her own because my father left us. He left because he was already married, and there- there would have been quite the scandal if anyone had found out. Not to mention the shame it would have brought him."
Kurt frowns.
“Blaine, what- why would he be ashamed?”
Blaine looks back at Kurt. His gaze is steady; determined. “You need to know why he left. There’s no easy way to tell you this. Believe me, I’ve wanted to ever since I met you - but I can never find the words. I’m not just a stable boy. That’s what I do, yes - but it’s not why I was taken in. Have you ever wondered why the Kings took in some random kid off the streets?”
Kurt shrugs and nods, but doesn’t say anything. He’s still not following, but he knows Blaine well enough by now to know to wait him out.
“One of them is my father. To be precise, King Hiram is my father. Which makes me the King’s bastard, basically. Unrecognized - I have no status other than that of stable boy. They protect me, and I keep their secret. That’s the deal. Nobody knew at first, apart from my family and them. Until I let it slip to Rachel, of course. And now you know.”
Kurt feels his eyes widen. “What?” he says, rather loudly.
Blaine just nods. “Rachel’s my sister. Well, half-sister I guess, but the point is that we share a blood father - and have the same royal bloodline. That’s the reason I got sent to the castle after- after the attack.”
Kurt keeps staring; he can’t comprehend this.
This is what Rachel meant, he thinks. Oh my god.
He claps his hand over his open mouth - he’s stunned. Suddenly, everything she’s been saying to him makes so much more sense. He shakes his head to clear it, but it’s not terribly successful.
“Blaine, I don’t know what to say. I feel like I have a million questions, but I don’t want to pry…”
“You can ask whatever you like, I’ll answer.”
Blaine spills more of the story over the course of the afternoon. The more Blaine talks, the more his words spin in Kurt’s brain - tangling with each other, with everything he’s been worried about. He feels like he’s finally broken through to who Blaine is, and what he wants. There’s so much pain just under the surface, and Kurt wishes he could fix it.
By the time they have to head home he’s promised himself he’ll try.
*
When Burt calls Kurt into their official meeting room he expects to be lectured again about all the time he’s spending with Blaine. What he hears instead is completely different.
“Son, I have some bad news. There’s been a spate of robberies and fighting along the North border, and I have to take a trip to sort it out. There have been complaints about me not seeing my whole kingdom, and they do have a point.”
Kurt takes a sharp breath. This happens, often enough that it’s no shock - but not often enough that Kurt is entirely used to being without his dad.
“How long will you be gone?” he asks.
“A month, maybe two,” Burt says simply. “You’ll be acting as King here, of course. You’re old enough now.”
“I’ll miss you,” he says. It’s true, after all. But there is something else. “Dad, Rachel and my engagement ceremony is in two months. Will you be back in time?”
“I don’t know, I’m going to try,” Burt shrugs apologetically, and Kurt waves him off.
Burt continues, “I hate leaving you with that looming, but I really can’t not go this time, Kurt. You understand, kid?”
Kurt nods. “I do, Dad. I’ll be okay, I promise.”
Kurt gets up and hugs Burt. He clings for a moment, and then releases his grip as suddenly as he’d started.
“When do you leave?” he asks.
“Next week. As soon as everything is ready,” Burt replies.
Kurt’s mind is whirring already. He knows he should be more careful of his responsibilities but all he can think about is how much easier it will be to see Blaine. He shakes himself, and asks to take his leave. His etiquette lessons reappear at the strangest times.
“Sure, kid. I’ll see you at dinner.”
“Bye, Dad.”
*
He’ll be in charge. For two months. Not only that, it’s for the two months leading up to his official engagement to Rachel.
They could - no, he can’t. He’s marrying her, and that’s that.
He has to stop thinking otherwise. He’ll make use of the time to enjoy his pseudo-freedom.
It’s not perfect, but it’s enough. He’ll make it be enough.
*
Part Five
Masterpost