A/N: A few days ago it suddenly dawned on me that Glee is set just before Lin-Manuel Miranda's masterpiece of a musical, Hamilton, premiered off-Broadway. And that, seeing that Kurt and Blaine live in NYC and are pretty into any kind of show really, chances are they would stumble across it sooner or later. And then I realized that a certain actor features in both Glee and Hamilton. This is what my head made of it...
P.S. Any reaction and criticism is welcome, but please note that this is the first thing I've written in almost two years. I'm a bit out of practice, I'm afraid...
"Ready for this month's date night?" Blaine asked, a twinkle in his eyes and watching Kurt.
His boyfriend was sitting on the floor, surrounded by old magazines, clipping parts from the pages. It was for some kind of collage, or so Blaine gathered. It was chaos, but a cute chaos. And it wouldn't last long, once Kurt finished one of his projects it usually took him about five minutes to restore order, ten tops if he had really made a mess. Blaine had never figured out how exactly he managed that.
Kurt looked up at him, the scissors in his hands momentarily forgotten. "Always!", he said, his eyes sparkling.
Seeing the joyous anticipation light up Kurt's face had been Blaine's favourite part of the whole arrangement from the very beginning. Within their first week of living together, they had agreed to take turns every month to plan a special date night. Just inviting the other out for dinner didn't count, it had to be something more unique, something special. So, every month one of them curiously waited for the other to announce what was planned.
"As long as it's not this coming Sunday." Kurt raised his scissors and pointed half threateningly at Blaine. "You know Rachel wanted me to come with her to that thing with her new colleagues. And as much as I'd like to have a reason to skip that, she'd first skin me alive and then spend hours laying out just how disappointed she was in me and my lack of support for her networking enterprise. So don't make me choose between the two of you. In that scenario there is just one outcome: I lose."
Blaine raised his eyebrows at him, pretending to be insulted. "Do you really think I would ever put you in that kind of position?"
"Okay, fair enough, you wouldn't." Kurt lowered the scissors again and Blaine grinned
"No, I wouldn't. Because I'm the best boyfriend you could ever hope for and would therefor never do that to you."
Now it was at Kurt to raise his eyebrows mockingly. "Are you? The best boyfriend I could ever hope for? I think that's for me to decide. And I won't make any statement in that regard until I know what you have planned. And when", he added as an afterthought.
Blaine shrugged. "Guess I'll have to wait a while for my ego boost, then. I'll just say it would be good if you were free this Saturday at six. But where we'll go then… You'll just have to wait and see."
He grinned at Kurt, knowing full well how the other man felt about surprises. Pretty double-minded. When they turned out good, he wouldn't stop gushing about them for days to come, if they were bad… Let it just be said it was always a slightly risky business. If there was one thing Kurt hated, it was not being in full control over any given situation. So, telling him in advance he wouldn't know what was to come equalled a tightrope act.
And as expected Kurt groaned. He raised the scissors again. "This better gonna be good!"
"Isn't it always?"
Kurt just scoffed in slight exasperation and got back to his collage. But Blaine saw the small smile on his lips. Well, Daniel, your recommendation had better been good!
Saturday evening found Blaine and Kurt on their way to the East Village with Kurt still being none the wiser as to where they were going.
They got out of the subway and arrived in Lafayette Street perfectly on time.
Kurt was watching his surroundings with wide eyes. "Come on, surely now you can tell me where we're going", he said, tugging at Blaine's arm that was linked with his own.
Blaine smiled mischievously at him and then nodded his head towards a reddish building with three rather prominent flags on it. Kurt followed his gesture and instantly started bouncing up and down.
"You don't even know what we're going to see yet", Blaine chuckled.
Kurt looked at him. "This is an off-Broadway theatre. So, we're going to see a show", he said, as if that explained everything. Which, admittedly, it kind of did.
"I'm telling you the guy could be his twin brother!" Kurt said again, still completely flabbergasted.
They were on their way back home and Kurt hadn't yet managed to calm down again. From the moment King George III had first appeared on stage - hell, from the moment that voice with the fake accent had sounded through the theatre even before the show had really started – he had found it incredibly difficult to concentrate on what was actually happening up there. In fact, had this amazing, unusual piece of art been even the tiniest bit less perfect, he probably wouldn't have managed at all.
"The guy was in full costume and painted with at least two millimetres worth of make-up. How can you even tell what he actually looks like?" Blaine asked amused and not for the first time.
"It's not just his face", Kurt answered, half exasperated, "it's his …all. His height, his posture, his voice, his movements…" He turned to look at Blaine when they stopped at a traffic light. "You've never met Jessie St. James but I guarantee you: That guy was a perfect copy of him. And I mean perfect. 'Perfect' like in how Rachel is the perfect drama queen and my dad is the best father in the world. 'Perfect' as in 'not in any way improvable'!"
Blaine raised his hands in surrender, laughing. "Alright, alright, calm down. I believe you. But it doesn't change the fact that in the booklet", he flipped it open again to check once more, "it says 'Jonathan Groff', not 'Jessie St. James'. Sorry to disappoint you."
"Yeah, I know!" Kurt furrowed his brow and looked at the offending piece of paper Blaine was offering him. There it was, black on orange-beige-ish: 'King George III' – 'Jonathan Groff' it said. "Still… I'm tempted to look Jessie up the moment we're home. Check he hasn't changed his name or something. Yup, I will definitely do that! Gosh, why did you make us leave our phones on the couch table? I'm too curious to wait that long!" The traffic light turned green and they crossed the now free street.
"Because I didn't want you to have any chance to check what we were going to see once you figured out where I was taking you. I told you Daniel from my Composition Class recommended the show and he has great taste, but I was pretty sure you wouldn't even have given it a chance had you found out it was a mixture of hip-hop, RnB, showtunes and just about every other genre you can think of. Before you had seen it, I mean."
Kurt narrowed his eyes at him for a moment but then laughed it off. "Okay, yeah, you might be right. It probably would have painfully reminded me of one of Mr. Schue's more adventurous musical experiments and those usually ended up in disaster. That man scarred me for life!" He laughed. "Anyway, I will look Jessie up. And then I'll find that he has changed his name. And is now Jonathan Groff. It's the only way I'll be able to sleep tonight."
"Why on earth would he have done that?" The grin on Blaine's face was a mile wide. It was all he could manage while trying not to start laughing again. Kurt was just so incredibly possessed by the idea.
"I don't know. Maybe he's been an asshole one too many times and had to go into hiding to be safe from a girl scorned or a show choir competitor out for his blood. Don't laugh", he glared at Blaine who had cracked up once more, "had you seen Rachel after he had ditched her back in our sophomore year, you would know that scenario isn't all that unlikely!"
"Sure, and changing your name only to get up on a stage in Manhattan every night is the perfect way of getting into hiding?"
"Well… I haven't thought this through completely, I'll admit, but this simply can't be a coincidence. I refuse to believe that! There can't be two guys looking and sounding exactly the same!" He stopped a second to look at Blaine. "You know what? I'll show you so you can see for yourself! I'll pull up some old videos from Vocal Adrenaline, no, wait", he pondered for a moment, "maybe I even have that monstrosity of a video project Rachel did to 'Run, Joey, Run' back in the day somewhere or I'll ask Artie, he's sure to still have a copy, poor guy was forced to edit it, after all."
"'Run, Joey, Run'?" Blaine asked, pure horror in his eyes.
"Yep, 'Run, Joey, Run'. And she let Finn, Puck and Jessie all play the part of Joey. With none of them knowing about the others until the video premiered in glee club." Blaine flinched at the mere thought and Kurt nodded solemnly but with a slightly malevolent smirk. "Aaaand it was just as awful as you might imagine. If I remember correctly, two of them stormed out of the room and neither of the three was too happy with her after that."
"Figures." Blaine said, his eyebrows almost touching his hairline in an expression of utter incredulity. "Why would she do that? And I mean use all three of them, not choosing that song. That I will just attribute to her sometimes rather … individual … taste."
Kurt laughed at the careful description of his absolutely mental best friend. "You know Rachel. She tends to overreact at times. And she is definitely not the best at handling love interests. Ouf, the things she tried back then… Just be grateful you only joined us two years after we could start mellowing her out a bit. You got spared the brunt of it."
"Sometimes it seems a miracle you all survived each other's company!" Blaine shook his head. He remembered the New Directions fondly but every now and then it dawned on him anew just how extreme some of the members had been at times.
"Doesn't just sound like it. It is! But: Not everyone can come up in a perfectly organized, almost always peaceful show choir as you Dalton boys. The Warblers seem downright boring compared to the New Directions!"
"They do, don't they?! But no, we weren't boring. Organized, yes. Peaceful, also yes. But not boring!" He scowled playfully at Kurt. "I refuse for them to be called that. And by an alumnus no less!"
"Ah, you know me, I like a little drama every now and again. Keeps things from getting too boring. And you have to admit: The Warblers were pretty tame. You had a council and all!"
"I'll have you recall a certain performance that involved a foam machine!" Blaine piped up. "That definitely wasn't tame!"
Kurt blushed at the reminder of the rather embarrassing aftermath of said event but refused to let himself get off track. "Anyway, it was very entertaining watching all of that unfold at McKinley week after week." He relished in the memories of the good old times for a second. "Up until the point where Jessie revealed his true self and we were left hanging in the black again, that is", he added thoughtfully.
Blaine nodded. "It really does speak for your talent that you ever managed to get anything done amongst all that chaos!"
"Hey, now who is the alumnus bad mouthing?" Kurt teased. And we didn't just get something done, we won Nationals!"
Blaine just laughed. "I know, I was there, remember?"
"Yes, you were", Kurt said and kissed him quickly, while they were waiting at the next traffic light for the cars to stop. "Anyway, I will find some footage and I will show you and you will have to admit Jonathan Groff and Jessie St. James have to be the same person. Or at least identical twins. There simply is no other explanation."
Half an hour later found Kurt and Blaine perched on their couch, Kurt's laptop open before them on the coffee table. Blaine was staring at it open mouthed while Kurt grinned broadly. "Don't say I didn't warn you!"
"This can't be!", Blaine said, shaking his head in disbelief. "It simply can't be! I know you're supposed to have a few unrelated twins scattered around the world but this… This is ridiculous!" He looked at Kurt with wide eyes and then back again at the screen where Vocal Adrenaline were acing their performance of 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. With Jessie St. James in the lead. Who looked and sounded a lot like King George III.
"So, have you learned your lesson for today?" Kurt asked him, the over-confident grin audible in his teasing tone.
"What lesson?" Blaine tried prying his eyes off the screen again but couldn't quite manage. It was a bit like a car crash. The weird fascination was too strong to turn it off.
"The lesson not to ever question my assessment because you'll find that in the end, you'll have to agree with me every time anyway."
Blaine managed to look up at that. "Fair enough", he said and grinned as well.
"Great!" Kurt stopped for a second, his expression changing from self-assured to mischievous. "You know what? I have an idea. We should get tickets again and take Rachel! Without telling her about a certain actor, of course. She'll flip!"
"That, my love, is the most devious plan I have ever heard! Let's do it!"
A/N: So here we are.
I'd be thrilled to read your thoughts on this little piece!