Kevin Price woke up in his apartment one morning to find a Disney prince in his bed. That was the only way he could describe it. There was an actual living, breathing Disney prince in his bed, sleeping with an arm over Kevin's chest and snoring soundly.
The inner nine-year-old Kevin Price was excited beyond belief by this turn of events. The twenty-five-year-old was rather confused. The last thing he could remember was hitting a downtown bar with his Columbia friends in celebration of passing the NY bar exam, and judging from the massive hangover pressing like a weight on his brow, he had gotten more than a little wasted. Had he drunkenly brought a stranger home last night and engaged in some sort of bizarre sexual roleplay without remembering it? Kevin couldn't recall ever harboring a secret Disney character kink, but he supposed alcohol could bring out crazy things in you.
Beside him the prince was beginning to stir, happily murmuring and rubbing his cheek against Kevin's shoulder. As the blankets fell away Kevin managed to get a good look at his outfit, which was truly something. He was sporting a white, high-collar military-style jacket threaded with an intricate gold leaf design and bearing fringed epaulettes, overlaid with a crimson sash. Kevin inhaled through his nose and caught the aroma of fresh grass and sweet-smelling flowers wafting from the prince's hair and clothes, as if he had just been rolling around in a meadow.
"I hope you don't mind, kind sir," the prince yawned suddenly, stretching his arms. "Your window was open, so I just let myself in."
Kevin blinked. "I live on the eighth floor."
"Yes, it was quite the climb." The prince started cuddling him. It was not an unpleasant sensation and was even beginning to dissipate some of his hangover, so Kevin continued to lie there in drowsy, peaceful silence. Being cuddled by a prince. A prince whose body was much softer and warmer than it had any right to be...
After they had been practically spooning like this for several minutes, neither of them making any attempt at conversation, Kevin finally spoke up again. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't really know who you are." He glanced over at the sleepy prince, who had his eyes closed and a content smile tugging at his lips. "I'm Kevin Price, by the way."
The prince frowned, opening his eyes. They were large and captivatingly blue, a shade of blue you only ever saw in the eyes of animated characters, and Kevin had to catch his breath for a moment. "You don't remember our meeting last night?"
Kevin shook his head. "Mostly I just remember walking back from the bar late at night, really drunk. Everything else escapes me."
"Yes, it was nightfall. The full moon was out, hanging like a giant, wondrous orb among the stars," the prince said, dramatically throwing out his arms and gesturing as he narrated. "You, Kevin Price, were striding down the streets of this terrifying city, and I – lost and frightened out of my wits after finding myself suddenly thrust into an unknown land – approached you with my plea of distress. And then you laughingly embraced me and asked if I was an actor from somewhere called 'Disney World.' I told you no, I was Prince McKinley, hailing from the great kingdom of...oh well, the details are unimportant for now. I was trying to see if you could help me find my way back home, but oddly enough you'd never seemed to have heard of it. Nor has anyone else in this strange place." He heaved a soft sigh and laid his hand back on Kevin's chest, stroking it absently.
"And then you randomly burst into song and started dancing," Kevin remembered. They had been standing in the middle of a moving crowd at the time, which had made the spectacle even more awkward.
"Is that such an uncommon thing in your land, to voice your emotions through song?" Prince McKinley asked, tilting his head. "People here seemed to be unnerved by it."
"No, not very common at all," Kevin said. "Though personally, I think the world would be a much better place if everyone sang what they were feeling all the time."
Prince McKinley smiled. It was a great, beatific smile that illuminated his entire face and enhanced the brilliance of his eyes. "I like you, Kevin Price," he declared.
"Thanks. I like me, too," Kevin replied, still feeling a little out of it.
"Does this mean you believe my story?" Prince McKinley asked, his eyes widening as he sat up on the bed, the blankets pooling around his waist. "Nobody else would believe me. That is why I followed you, of all your land's denizens. The others kept on calling me...what was the word they used...a 'weirdo.' And other names that did not sound very nice."
"Well," Kevin considered, propping himself up on his elbow, "part of me is inclined to agree with them, to be honest. I'm not completely sure that I'm not still asleep right now."
"I see," said Prince McKinley, his smile falling slightly.
"But another part of me thinks it would be a really amazing thing if you exist and are telling the truth...so I choose to believe you." Prince McKinley's face brightened again.
"I don't know about you, but I for one am famished. Do you perchance have anything to eat around here?" he asked as he sprawled himself out luxuriously over Kevin's bed, pulling the blankets snugly over him. Normally Kevin might balk at the utter gall of someone who broke into his apartment, invaded his personal space, and then requested that he feed him, but it wasn't every day that you got to interact with a real life Disney character.
So Kevin went to the kitchen to fix them both some breakfast and began rummaging through the disorderly contents of his fridge, tossing away everything that looked too stale or otherwise unsuitable for Prince McKinley's likely sophisticated royal palate. He didn't know what would exactly be appropriate to serve a prince from possibly some otherworldly dimension, but he finally decided on making a simple meal of waffles, scrambled eggs, and toast, with some berries and orange juice on the side. Afterwards he laid a few plastic flowers on Prince McKinley's tray in an effort to spruce it up a bit.
When Kevin returned to his room, hefting two trays of food, he saw the prince bending over the window sill with his head stuck out, his voice rippling with blithe laughter. He appeared to be currently engrossed in merry conversation with the birds outside, who were perched in a row all along his arm. "From what I can tell, my feathery friends, Kevin seems really nice. And tall." He paused as the birds let out a series of excited chirps. "Yes, he's very good-looking."
He rested his cheek in his hand and let out a deep, romantic sigh. "It's impossible, but it almost felt as though we'd met somewhere before...perhaps it was in a dream."
"Oh, so you can talk to animals, too?" Kevin asked, causing the prince to whirl around and the birds to flap away in fright. "That is...so cool."
"You think so?" Prince McKinley said, brushing a lock of hair behind his ear. It seemed that the birds had been busy decorating his hair with tiny pink rosebuds. "It's nothing special, really...a natural talent. Most people in my family can do it." To demonstrate, he leaned back out the window and trilled a series of rising notes, causing a pigeon to swoop by several seconds later and drop a bouquet of flowers into his hands. "See?" Prince McKinley said, handing Kevin a flower.
"Incredible," Kevin replied.
As they consumed their breakfast on top of Kevin's bed (he tried not to think too much about the mess he'd probably have to clean up later), Kevin took the opportunity to engage the prince in some light conversation – about himself, his city, the world in which he lived...though mostly about himself. He went on at great length about his budding legal career and his plans to find gainful work in the public interest sector, hoping make some sort of difference in the world. At times he had a suspicion that the prince understood well less than half of everything he said, but Prince McKinley nonetheless looked completely enthralled, his blue eyes periodically growing large and glittering with wonder.
"Your world sounds so terribly messy," Prince McKinley remarked at one point. "You mean to say that around here, goodness and truth and love don't always triumph over the forces of evil in the end?"
"Well, yeah...that's why some of us have to work so hard, to make sure that real justice is served, you know? And sometimes it just doesn't happen." Prince McKinley just shook his head in apparent disbelief.
Then the prince told Kevin a little about his own world, a fantastical place teeming with fairies and magic and unicorns, trolls and giants and mermaids and the occasional power-hungry villain or two. He breezed through the descriptions in a more or less perfunctory tone, as if were all perfectly ordinary (and maybe it was, to him). Kevin thought it all sounded amazing.
"Did you ever get to do all the cool stuff they talk about in stories, like slay dragons and rescue princesses?" he asked, sweeping his arm in a sword-slashing motion.
"Don't be absurd," the prince responded, looking horrified. "Why would I want to slay any living creature, let alone one of an endangered species? And I've never had to rescue any princesses. Princess Nabulungi is extremely capable of handling herself, in nearly any situation."
"Princess Nabulungi?"
"The smartest, kindest, most beautiful princess in all the land. She was my betrothed, ever since we were children," Prince McKinley explained, his voice growing warm with affection. "It was believed that our eventual marriage would unite our two kingdoms and usher in an era of peace and prosperity."
He fell silent for a moment, fiddling restlessly with his utensils and turning them over and over in his slim, perfectly manicured hands. Then he continued. "But on the morning of our wedding day, I took one look at my reflection in the mirror, which was gazing back at me like a stranger...and I realized that, for whatever reason, I just couldn't go through with the wedding. So I ran away. Everyone came looking for me afterwards, worrying that something had happened. I tried hiding myself in an old well by the witch's cabin in the woods, but I didn't realize how deep it was – for a while I just kept falling and falling through a dark abyss. And that's how I ended up here, in your world." He gazed out towards the city skyline stretching out beyond the open window, the slant of his mouth deepening into a frown. "When I think about it, maybe this is fate's way of punishing me for my cowardice. I was only thinking about myself, not about what would be best for my family, or my people."
"If the princess was so smart and beautiful, why didn't you want to get married?" Kevin asked as he buttered his toast and took a sizable bite out of it.
An unhappy look flickered over Prince McKinley's face, and his eyes creased a little at the corners. "I have asked myself that many times. It's certainly not that I could ever conceive of any other woman being my wife, and we'd sung beautiful duets together all the time. The only answer I can think of is...that we have yet to share true love's kiss. It's supposed to be the most magical thing in the world, so they say...the most joyous thing that a man and a woman can experience together."
"Well, I think you would know before that if you were in love," Kevin pointed out, as Prince McKinley quietly nibbled at his toast. "Oh here, you've got some..." Kevin said, gesturing at a splotch of jelly dripping from the prince's chin.
One of Prince McKinley's hands quickly flew up to his face just as Kevin reached out to wipe it for him, and their fingers brushed together, ever so gently. Their eyes met; the prince blinked rapidly several times, his mouth falling slightly open but making no sound.
"Sorry," Kevin said hastily, taking away his hand.
Prince McKinley was still holding his face and staring at Kevin like he was the most fascinating thing the prince had ever seen. Truthfully, Kevin felt exceedingly ordinary next to this mythical being, which was not a feeling that Kevin Price was used to experiencing. "Have you ever been in love?" the prince prompted curiously, his voice adopting a strange, higher-pitched intonation.
"Me? Nah..." Kevin scoffed with a shrug. "I'm afraid I'm still searching for 'the one.'"
"It is not my business generally to make prophecies," Prince McKinley said slowly, edging closer to Kevin, "but I can tell that you are a good-hearted person, Kevin Price...and where I come from, good people will always discover what they are searching for, in the end." He clasped his hands together over his heart, a dreamy expression drifting into his eyes. "You will find your true love someday – the person made to answer to your duet. Maybe when you least expect it."
If I'm lucky...maybe I already have, Kevin mused, as he looked upon the prince's handsome smiling face. Prince McKinley had begun swaying happily from side to side, cradling a pillow in his arms and humming a melody that Kevin didn't recognize, but he could catch the phrase "true love" being repeated over and over in blissful reverie.
"Here, let me get dressed and then I'll show you around the city," Kevin said, standing up just as the prince looked on the verge of erupting into another spontaneous musical number. Another thought then occurred to him. "I might even introduce you to my friend Arnold – he's read all sorts of weird sci-fi and fantasy stuff. I bet he can think of a way to get you back home, if anybody could." He pulled out a fresh shirt and slacks from a drawer and tossed them onto the bed.
"People here wear such strange clothes," Prince McKinley marveled, prodding at the clothing items as Kevin started to undress. He watched Kevin interestedly for a few moments while Kevin was tugging his undershirt over his head, then quickly blushed and covered his face with his hands.
Interesting, Kevin thought. He bent to remove his pants as well, not failing to notice how the prince was peeking at him through his fingers.
After Kevin had finished brushing his teeth and perfecting his physical appearance in the bathroom, he came back to find that Prince McKinley had traded his jacket for a tunic and cape that he had somehow speedily fashioned out of the old bedsheets in Kevin's closet. "The mice helped, of course." (Kevin started looking around his room in alarm.) "Anyway, I thought this outfit might draw less attention," Prince McKinley said cheerfully, pirouetting like a ballet dancer as his cape spun around him in a whirlwind of color. Kevin couldn't help grinning at the sight.
"All right, Your Highness, get ready to be dazzled by everything New York has to offer," Kevin proclaimed as he flung open the door to his apartment and dipped into a slight bow. Prince McKinley pranced after him with his cape billowing, clapping his hands in excitement. "You might even say I'm about to show you...a whole new world. Shining, shimmering, splendid."
Prince McKinley took Kevin's proffered arm and smiled at him. "I can hardly wait."