Glee Fic, The Sun From Both Sides, Chapter 1, Rated R
Okay, I have surrendered to the fact that I did not get enough of this fic done for the Gleebang. On the upside, than means I get to post what I do have done now!
Title: The Sun From Both Sides
Rating: R for graphic descriptions of violence and language
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine
Length: 15,000+ (eventually)
Summary: AU/Supernatural--In a world where the Greek Pantheon remained the primary theology of western civlization, Blaine is rescued on the night of the Sadie Hawkins Dance by a God with plans for his future. Two years later, he meets that future head on when Kurt Hummel becomes Apollo's newset (and most reluctant) Delphic Oracle. Set early in season 2, before "Never Been Kissed."
AN: basic knowledge of Greek myth is helpful to understand what 's going on.
To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides. -David Viscott
Blaine Anderson’s clearest memory of the night he almost died was the sound of his date’s skull breaking open against the ground like a ripe cantaloupe. When asked, later in life, what it was like to see someone murdered, he’d reply, sometimes sardonically, that he hadn’t seen it-- he’d heard it. Blaine was already on the ground himself, breathing around the needling sharp hot pain of shattered ribs when he heard it. I couldn’t see him, he’d later tell police. I was afraid to look, was the painful, shameful truth.
It took three weeks and two days for Blaine to work up the nerve to ask Jonathan Myers to the Sadie Hawkins dance. Jonathan, tall for his age with laughing eyes, who was full of fire and life and promise. Jonathan, who had watched Blaine stammer through asking him out, was gentle enough not to laugh and wonderful, wonderful enough to say yes.
Jonathan, who died with swift mercy un-witnessed, because Blaine was just brave enough to love him but not quite brave enough to watch him die.
After the thugs realized what they’d done, they ran. Leaving Blaine drowning in his own blood, thinking blearily as his vision tunneled and he waited for Charon that surviving this at all was probably a punishment for his cowardice.
‘Punishment’ was the only way to describe the long cold hours between the assault and sunrise, when everything-everything-changed. Blaine heard the birds before he saw the sky changing, smelled the dew before he felt the sun’s warmth. He watched the rose gold light spill silently across the blood spattered asphalt, stretching out in lengthening tendrils until it finally reached him.
It burned. Blaine felt as though he’d been plunged in molten metal. His body blazed with it, so much worse than his previous injuries he’d have cheerfully begged for that beating again. In the midst of that pain, he heard the God’s voice for the first and last time in his life.
Apollo. Sun God, ruler of prophecy, truth, and music.
Blaine instinctively knew it, though his family had never worshipped Him. He turned towards the presence even as its voice flayed his senses, a sound he could see and feel and taste. The voice was worse than the light, somehow even worse than the heat, which should not have been possible. Blaine believed in those horrible moments that even if he could survive this encounter he could not possibly emerge from it sane. Few mortals could withstand the voice and presence of a God, mostly Oracles and Prophets who paid for their fortitude with extreme isolation from the rest of humanity. Everyone else emerged from their celestial encounter with hamburger where their brains used to be.
The pain stretched and stretched and impossibly grew while the Voice told Blaine things, some things he’d only begin to understand two years later when his life would finally start again. It asked him if he wanted to live, if he was willing to pay, to serve, for the privilege. He must have said yes.
Blaine survived.
Blaine snapped awake at precisely solar noon, immediately and instinctively aware of the sun’s position in the sky and how long he had before it sank again below the horizon. He raised his head into the light like a plant, soaking in his God’s power, feeling it push back lingering shadows of pain.
Opening his eyes he found himself surrounded by surprised paramedics, standing slightly back from him in awe. His parents huddled together by a police car. Jonathan’s body already cleared away. They’d had to wait, he realized. Everyone had seen it happen. Everyone knew.
Opening his palms, he saw them. On his right palm, the laurel wreath, symbol of Apollo’s champions glowing a soft gold. On his left, a similarly illuminated lyre, the symbol of His choosing, and a symbol of the second gift he bestowed on his Hero.
Blaine had been given his life, in exchange for a lifetime of service however the God saw fit. He’d been given his life--and a second gift to mark him forever as Apollo’s.
Blaine had survived… and been given music.
Two years later:
Blaine’s roommate David was glued to CNN, like everyone else in western civilization. Everyone but Blaine, who adjusted the cuffs of his Dalton Academy blazer and gave his hair a final check for rogue curls escaping their gelled uniformity. Watching the news obsessively waiting for the poor old guy to die was just too morbid for him. It was tacky and crass and the news media should seriously know better.
That’s what he told himself and anyone who asked. Being the only Apollonian Hero at Dalton, everyone (even the teachers, which showed a deplorable lack of decorum) was asking who he thought the next Delphic Oracle would be. It annoyed Blaine for many reasons, not the least of which was that the ailing Oracle was still alive, for Elysium’s sake!
It was just too big a news story to ignore though and for the first time since his Calling, Blaine found his Hero status at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts, his own included. There was a chance, a slim chance, that the anointing of a new Oracle would push Blaine into active service.
In the two year since being Chosen, Blaine’s life had been largely unaffected by his new calling. He had undergone a summer’s worth of training at the Temple of Delphi, learning the history of Apollo, the various rites of the temple and been given an overview of what his duties might be in the various roles he could be called to fulfill. Heroes could be called to do almost anything in their God’s service, rather like the National Guard. Blaine knew if he wasn’t tapped for a Quest or duty of some sort before he turned eighteen, he would spend at least three months a year for the rest of his life as either an acolyte or guard in a local Apollonian Temple.
Other than a Quest, there was only one other duty he could be called to before his eighteenth birthday. He knew from his training that being a Hero meant he couldn’t be an Oracle, but he could be tagged as the new Oracle’s Guardian.
That was the duty he dreaded the most and the reason he refused to watch as the world waited with baited breath for a new Oracle to be chosen.
There were currently seven Delphic Oracles, only one for each continent at any time. At the moment of an Oracle’s death, another would be chosen to replace them by Apollo Himself. The Delphic sigil, a twining serpent, would appear on the palms of the new Oracle and a tiny sprig of laurel leaves, symbolizing the supremacy of Apollo’s ability to foresee events, would appear on their cheekbones beneath each eye. The sigils would glow from within with the same faint sun gold luminescence of Blaine’s marks, impossible to disguise.
The Oracle chosen was normally an adolescent or young adult, the better to squeeze the maximum amount of service out of a mortal’s short lifespan. It was like a Cinderella fairy tale, waking up one morning and catapulted from ordinary to one of the most famed and fabled prophets alive, from obscurity to one of the most influential people in the world. The Oracles were petitioned by the rich and famous, by governments and royalty. The North American Oracle practically lived in Washington during election years. It was a heady amount of power, but it came at a hefty price.
Oracles devoted their entire lives to Apollo’s service, their minds ripped open to receive Apollo’s words and visions. Once breached, the protective walls that guarded mortal’s minds from the Divine could never be rebuilt. Isolated from human contact, Oracles found themselves utterly dependent on their personal Guardians: Heroes paired with them for life to provide a psychic buffer and, if necessary, physical protection. Like a twisted interpretation of an arranged marriage, it was a lifelong commitment with the added bonus of a spiritual bond that prevented them from being apart any significant distance for more than a few hours or a day at the most.
If Blaine was lucky, some other Hero would be assigned to the new Oracle and he could serve his time in a Temple without sacrificing his entire future.
A cold feeling in Blaine’s stomach reminded him that he’d never been very lucky.
Resolutely ignoring the somber voice of Anderson Cooper reporting the North American Oracle’s swiftly deteriorating condition, Blaine gave his blazer one last adjustment and strode out onto the bustling dorm halls.
Chapter Two
Title: The Sun From Both Sides
Rating: R for graphic descriptions of violence and language
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine
Length: 15,000+ (eventually)
Summary: AU/Supernatural--In a world where the Greek Pantheon remained the primary theology of western civlization, Blaine is rescued on the night of the Sadie Hawkins Dance by a God with plans for his future. Two years later, he meets that future head on when Kurt Hummel becomes Apollo's newset (and most reluctant) Delphic Oracle. Set early in season 2, before "Never Been Kissed."
AN: basic knowledge of Greek myth is helpful to understand what 's going on.
To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides. -David Viscott
Blaine Anderson’s clearest memory of the night he almost died was the sound of his date’s skull breaking open against the ground like a ripe cantaloupe. When asked, later in life, what it was like to see someone murdered, he’d reply, sometimes sardonically, that he hadn’t seen it-- he’d heard it. Blaine was already on the ground himself, breathing around the needling sharp hot pain of shattered ribs when he heard it. I couldn’t see him, he’d later tell police. I was afraid to look, was the painful, shameful truth.
It took three weeks and two days for Blaine to work up the nerve to ask Jonathan Myers to the Sadie Hawkins dance. Jonathan, tall for his age with laughing eyes, who was full of fire and life and promise. Jonathan, who had watched Blaine stammer through asking him out, was gentle enough not to laugh and wonderful, wonderful enough to say yes.
Jonathan, who died with swift mercy un-witnessed, because Blaine was just brave enough to love him but not quite brave enough to watch him die.
After the thugs realized what they’d done, they ran. Leaving Blaine drowning in his own blood, thinking blearily as his vision tunneled and he waited for Charon that surviving this at all was probably a punishment for his cowardice.
‘Punishment’ was the only way to describe the long cold hours between the assault and sunrise, when everything-everything-changed. Blaine heard the birds before he saw the sky changing, smelled the dew before he felt the sun’s warmth. He watched the rose gold light spill silently across the blood spattered asphalt, stretching out in lengthening tendrils until it finally reached him.
It burned. Blaine felt as though he’d been plunged in molten metal. His body blazed with it, so much worse than his previous injuries he’d have cheerfully begged for that beating again. In the midst of that pain, he heard the God’s voice for the first and last time in his life.
Apollo. Sun God, ruler of prophecy, truth, and music.
Blaine instinctively knew it, though his family had never worshipped Him. He turned towards the presence even as its voice flayed his senses, a sound he could see and feel and taste. The voice was worse than the light, somehow even worse than the heat, which should not have been possible. Blaine believed in those horrible moments that even if he could survive this encounter he could not possibly emerge from it sane. Few mortals could withstand the voice and presence of a God, mostly Oracles and Prophets who paid for their fortitude with extreme isolation from the rest of humanity. Everyone else emerged from their celestial encounter with hamburger where their brains used to be.
The pain stretched and stretched and impossibly grew while the Voice told Blaine things, some things he’d only begin to understand two years later when his life would finally start again. It asked him if he wanted to live, if he was willing to pay, to serve, for the privilege. He must have said yes.
Blaine survived.
Blaine snapped awake at precisely solar noon, immediately and instinctively aware of the sun’s position in the sky and how long he had before it sank again below the horizon. He raised his head into the light like a plant, soaking in his God’s power, feeling it push back lingering shadows of pain.
Opening his eyes he found himself surrounded by surprised paramedics, standing slightly back from him in awe. His parents huddled together by a police car. Jonathan’s body already cleared away. They’d had to wait, he realized. Everyone had seen it happen. Everyone knew.
Opening his palms, he saw them. On his right palm, the laurel wreath, symbol of Apollo’s champions glowing a soft gold. On his left, a similarly illuminated lyre, the symbol of His choosing, and a symbol of the second gift he bestowed on his Hero.
Blaine had been given his life, in exchange for a lifetime of service however the God saw fit. He’d been given his life--and a second gift to mark him forever as Apollo’s.
Blaine had survived… and been given music.
Two years later:
Blaine’s roommate David was glued to CNN, like everyone else in western civilization. Everyone but Blaine, who adjusted the cuffs of his Dalton Academy blazer and gave his hair a final check for rogue curls escaping their gelled uniformity. Watching the news obsessively waiting for the poor old guy to die was just too morbid for him. It was tacky and crass and the news media should seriously know better.
That’s what he told himself and anyone who asked. Being the only Apollonian Hero at Dalton, everyone (even the teachers, which showed a deplorable lack of decorum) was asking who he thought the next Delphic Oracle would be. It annoyed Blaine for many reasons, not the least of which was that the ailing Oracle was still alive, for Elysium’s sake!
It was just too big a news story to ignore though and for the first time since his Calling, Blaine found his Hero status at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts, his own included. There was a chance, a slim chance, that the anointing of a new Oracle would push Blaine into active service.
In the two year since being Chosen, Blaine’s life had been largely unaffected by his new calling. He had undergone a summer’s worth of training at the Temple of Delphi, learning the history of Apollo, the various rites of the temple and been given an overview of what his duties might be in the various roles he could be called to fulfill. Heroes could be called to do almost anything in their God’s service, rather like the National Guard. Blaine knew if he wasn’t tapped for a Quest or duty of some sort before he turned eighteen, he would spend at least three months a year for the rest of his life as either an acolyte or guard in a local Apollonian Temple.
Other than a Quest, there was only one other duty he could be called to before his eighteenth birthday. He knew from his training that being a Hero meant he couldn’t be an Oracle, but he could be tagged as the new Oracle’s Guardian.
That was the duty he dreaded the most and the reason he refused to watch as the world waited with baited breath for a new Oracle to be chosen.
There were currently seven Delphic Oracles, only one for each continent at any time. At the moment of an Oracle’s death, another would be chosen to replace them by Apollo Himself. The Delphic sigil, a twining serpent, would appear on the palms of the new Oracle and a tiny sprig of laurel leaves, symbolizing the supremacy of Apollo’s ability to foresee events, would appear on their cheekbones beneath each eye. The sigils would glow from within with the same faint sun gold luminescence of Blaine’s marks, impossible to disguise.
The Oracle chosen was normally an adolescent or young adult, the better to squeeze the maximum amount of service out of a mortal’s short lifespan. It was like a Cinderella fairy tale, waking up one morning and catapulted from ordinary to one of the most famed and fabled prophets alive, from obscurity to one of the most influential people in the world. The Oracles were petitioned by the rich and famous, by governments and royalty. The North American Oracle practically lived in Washington during election years. It was a heady amount of power, but it came at a hefty price.
Oracles devoted their entire lives to Apollo’s service, their minds ripped open to receive Apollo’s words and visions. Once breached, the protective walls that guarded mortal’s minds from the Divine could never be rebuilt. Isolated from human contact, Oracles found themselves utterly dependent on their personal Guardians: Heroes paired with them for life to provide a psychic buffer and, if necessary, physical protection. Like a twisted interpretation of an arranged marriage, it was a lifelong commitment with the added bonus of a spiritual bond that prevented them from being apart any significant distance for more than a few hours or a day at the most.
If Blaine was lucky, some other Hero would be assigned to the new Oracle and he could serve his time in a Temple without sacrificing his entire future.
A cold feeling in Blaine’s stomach reminded him that he’d never been very lucky.
Resolutely ignoring the somber voice of Anderson Cooper reporting the North American Oracle’s swiftly deteriorating condition, Blaine gave his blazer one last adjustment and strode out onto the bustling dorm halls.
Chapter Two