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All right, all right, you guys ready? C’mere, pipsqueak. There you go. All right, let’s begin.
*
Once upon a time, there was this really awesome, totally badass king. He was very cool, and he wore lots of black leather, and he had this really gorgeous, massive, curly beard, all black and huge and—what, you don’t think I could grow a massive curly beard? Ask your dad for some pictures from when we first met, then, you’ll see.
Anyway, there was this very cool, totally amazing king. He was so cool, and so amazing, that no one ever challenged him for the crown anymore. They just let him get on with anything! He could show up at another kingdom’s doorstep, and say, hey, your kingdom is mine now, and they’d say, yessir, King Blackbeard sir, anything you want.
It was nice for a bit, but then it got boring.
King Blackbeard thought he would love being in charge, but it wasn’t all that awesome. Everyone was too afraid to play with him anymore. They didn’t want to share with him, even, they’d just give him their stuff.
And that’s when—yeah, exactly, I met your dad. Well, no, this is a fairy story. Not real. Fiction. Anyway.
That’s when King Blackbeard met the prince. Or, more accurately, the prince fell right in front of him, off a kerb and into the street. King Blackbeard nearly ran him over, but fortunately missed him at the last minute. Nah, nobody was hurt. King Blackbeard got off his bike—what kind of bike? Erm, big one. Like mine, but not mine, because this is a story.
No, I’ve never run anybody over on the bike. Ah, no, I’ve never fallen off it either. No, it didn’t—heh—it never had training wheels. I learned to ride on a bike like yours first, and then when I could do that properly, I had to learn all over again on my bike.
Sure. When you’re older.
When you’re older too. Much older. You guys gotta be able to grow a big, massive curly black beard first! Yeah, you do, them’s the rules. All right, all right. C’mon. You ready for more story?
Where was I.
So King Blackbeard got off his bike and helped the prince back up onto the pavement. He had a huge big spot on him where he’d spilled his coffee on his shirt, and King Blackbeard felt really bad, because it was a really nice shirt. He offered to pay to have the shirt cleaned, but the prince only smiled and said he had plenty of shirts.
Yeah, your dad does have a lot of shirts. He’s very stylish. Yeah, that’s right, sometimes I wear the shirts too. You think they look better on me or on Dad? Well, good, but let’s not tell Dad that, yeah? Our little secret.
The King liked the prince, though, and he didn’t want him to just walk away and never see the King again. So the King thought very quickly, and very smartly, and he told the prince he didn’t believe him about his shirt collection. Oh, you’ll have to let me take you to dinner, the King said, so I can see some more of these shirts.
And the prince decided to one-up the King, and he said, well, why don’t you come see them! It’s just up the road.
Well, the prince was a grown-up, so it was kind of okay. Grown-ups are allowed to make those kinds of decisions, yeah? What do you do if a stranger asks you to go home and see some shirts? That’s right, you yell real loud and me or Dad or Mom or Doug will come find you. You wanna try it? All right, on three, one, two, three—
Great yell. Fantastic yell. You guys are the best yellers—
We’re fine, love! Practicing yelling. All right, we better be quiet quick and finish our story, all right? All right.
So King Blackbeard went to see the shirts with the prince, which was okay because the prince and the king were both grown-ups. And the prince really did have a lot of shirts. So many shirts. The King didn’t think he’d ever seen so many shirts in one place in his entire life. Silk shirts! Linen shirts! Shirts with leaves on them and shirts with birds on them and that silly shirt with the little flamingos, you guys know that one, right? Exactly.
And the King picked up one shirt in particular, this really fancy purple one, and he was feeling it in his hands, how soft it was.
And the prince said, that would look totally cool on you, King Blackbeard, you should definitely wear it. So King Blackbeard tried the shirt on, and it did look totally cool on him. He was kind of sad to take it off, actually.
Now, the thing is—the prince hadn’t really had anybody in his life before who was excited about his shirts. He was kind of lonely, this prince, just like the King was lonely, and sometimes people weren’t very nice about how much the prince loved shirts, or books, or other things, even though there was nothing wrong with that. They wanted the prince to be a Big Corporate Boss Prince, and they were disappointed that he wasn’t.
So the prince was very excited that the King was into his shirts. And that the King was nice to him, and listened to him when he talked, and never made fun of him for things like the shirts, or his little alien lamp, or the fact that he didn’t want to be a Big Corporate Boss Prince. The King liked the prince the way he was, just like how the prince liked the King the way he was.
Now, remember, when the prince fell off the kerb, he spilled his coffee all over himself. So he didn’t have any coffee, and it was a little too early for dinner, but the King really wanted to spend more time with the prince.
Well, he thought the prince was really cool. And very handsome. Yeah, pretty, of course boys can be pretty, you don’t think I’m pretty? And girls can be handsome. And some people aren’t boys or girls, like Jim. Jim could be pretty, yeah, but they don’t really like it. They like to be handsome.
The King thought the prince was really cool and very handsome and had some good shirts, so he invited the prince out for coffee, which they did. The prince didn’t tell the King that he was supposed to be at some meetings that afternoon, and they ended up drinking coffee all through the prince’s meetings. And then it was nighttime, and the King was getting a bit peckish, so they went from coffee to dinner, at the King’s own restaurant.
This turned out to be a bad idea. The King had thought he could impress the prince with his restaurant, because the King was a super good cook, and his restaurant was very popular. Lots of people liked it. Made the best macaroni ‘n cheese in the whole kingdom.
But the King hadn’t considered that his Advisor would be at the restaurant.
Now the Advisor was a big meanie, and the Advisor didn’t like the prince, and he didn’t like that the King was wearing the prince’s purple shirt. He started to plot ways he could ruin the dinner between the prince and the King, but fortunately the King had lots of other friends who stopped the Advisor from ruining the dinner entirely—
No, nobody got poisoned. He was just—he wanted to talk to King Blackbeard about a lot of really boring stuff when King Blackbeard was trying to pay attention to your da—to the prince. He just wanted the prince to feel like he wasn’t welcome there and go away.
The friends were there though, and soon enough the friends had contained the Advisor. One friend pretended to have trouble counting all the things in the back room he was supposed to count, and another friend pretended that their fridge was broken, and they kept him busy all night.
The dinner lasted all night too. And the prince and the King ate some really good food. And the prince was really funny, and he made the King feel really nice, and even after dessert was over they wanted to stay and keep talking to each other.
They decided to go for a walk, so the friends could clean up the restaurant for the night. The King and the prince walked and walked all through the city, until it was really cold. They had little cups of cocoa though, and eventually the King was very brave, braver than he’d ever had to be in slaying a dragon or stealing a treasure, and he reached down to hold the prince’s hand.
Which kind of surprised the prince because he’s a silly goose and didn’t realise that they were on a date.
Yeah, he realised it then. Nah, the King wasn’t mad. He thought it was kind of silly, but mostly he thought it was really charming, and fun, and he thought the prince blushed really very nicely about it.
What! I’m just telling you the truth! I already said he was a very beautiful prince, and you—gah. You lot are hopeless. No appreciation, no appreciation at all!
Anyway. The King walked the prince home, and the prince said, oh my goodness, King Blackbeard, you’d better come in and collect your shirt, and the King said, oh, yeah, let me give you this one back. But the prince said all right, if you insist. But you’ll have to come again and borrow another one sometime.
So he offered to share his shirts with the King, when no one had offered to share with the King for years and years.
And the King realised, this is what he wanted, yeah? This is what he needed. Someone who wouldn’t just give him everything he ever wanted, but someone who would share it with him—who would share his life, and play with him, and get coffee with him, and dinner too, if the mood struck. Someone who would see the King for the person he was, and not the king, and who would want to show the King the person they were too.
And I guess that’s when the King knew he was in love.
Now, here’s the important thing. C’mere, pumpkin, you’re slipping. Yeah, you too, pipsqueak. You know how Daddy always says there’s a secret in the middle of a story? What do you guys think the secret is?
Yeah, that’s a good secret, sharing your things. You don’t have to share your shirts though, you can share other things. What else? Alma, what do you think?
It is good to be brave, yeah, that’s a good one. If the King hadn’t been brave, the prince would never have known that they were on a date, and that would have been a tragedy.
What do I think? Well.
You know we always say, right, that you can fall in love with just, whoever you want. Anybody you like, you can fall in love with them.
Some people will fall in love with lots of people over their lifetimes, and some people will fall in love with lots of people all at once, yeah, like Uncle Lucius and Pete and Fang, and that’s totally cool. Some people decide they never want to fall in love at all, and that’s cool too, yeah? Some people just want to have friends. And some people fall in love with just one person. And all that love is good.
So the King fell in love with the prince, and eventually the prince realised too that he was in love with the King.
But here’s the secret. Happily ever after isn’t the end of the story. It’s just the beginning.
Sometimes, happily ever after is really hard. Sometimes they had bad days, but when they fell in love, they decided to treat each other always like they were in love, even on the days when it was easier to forget. Days like when the Advisor is being a butt, or when the prince’s old enemies come out to have a fight, or when the King or the prince get scared because they hadn’t been loved very well before, and they didn’t know how to love somebody else, really, except the prince’s kids, who they loved very much and always will forever and ever.
So sometimes, happily ever after takes a bit of elbow grease. Yeah, like cleaning up your room so you can sleep better in your bed.
But sometimes it takes some work. That’s okay. Even when Daddy does something that drives me crazy, or even when I do something that makes Daddy mad, underneath that, we still love each other, all right? So we can be mad or annoyed but we still share. And we still try to be a little brave. And we still try to be as kind as we can possibly be.
And in the end, it’s worth it, yeah? All that falling in love, all that bravery, and sharing, and all that hard work—it’s worth it.
Because the King loves the prince so much, sometimes it feels like the sun is inside his chest. It could light up the whole sky. And the prince loves the King too, and he makes the King feel safe, and happy, and together the prince and the King would take care of the prince’s kids sometimes, and they want those kids to feel safe and happy too, yeah?
And together all of them would build a home.
The King had never had a home before. Turns out it’s really freaking awesome.
*
How long you been standing there?
Ah, come on, sweet, don’t cry. C’mere. You know I love you. Mmhm. Yeah, whole sky, s’what I said—mmm—mmm. Hey, hey—not that this isn’t great, but let’s not wake them up, all right? You take Pip and put him in his bed, I’ll get Alma tucked in.
Yeah. I’m right behind you.
Night, my loves. Sleep tight.