Fic: Beauty (Prologue)
Title: Beauty (Prologue)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Blaine Anderson was blessed with the perks of being beautiful in a world where people are literally separated into classes based on being "beautiful" or "ugly". Kurt Hummel was not. This is their journey together in throwing off the world's labels, of finding true beauty among a constellation of charades. This is their love story.
Word Count: this chapter, 1,689
A/N: Hello! This is something I've been working on for a while, and since I like to have stories finished before I post them, also fully completed. This is one of the first legitimately long, chaptered fanfictions I've written, so I'm sort of proud of it, and I hope you can enjoy it! :)
Prologue
Blaine swept his eyes around the tiny room. Tiny silver pinchers, glinting in the bright light, robotically swung back and forth, picking up tiny green computer chips and inserting them into a slot in the wall. The chips landed with a soft clink, which kept his attention by that slot in the wall. In his peripheral vision he could see his father, tapping away at a projected keyboard, eyes trained sternly upwards as a series of animated faces flashed across the screen. The faces were blank, babies blinking into the very first camera they would ever see in their life. Their eyes held wonder and luminosity, but no fear. They were too young to fear what was being done to them, too young to have any reason to mistrust the world.
Around his father were other employees, each giving minimal attention to the faces that were perpetually flashing, an eternal series of trusting blinks and misplaced expectation. The room whirred quietly with the projector’s exertions and the quiet shifting of the employees here in this room, one exactly like the many id-ing centers that had been installed several years ago by the government in every hospital around the globe.
People had tried to resist it of course. People tried to resist this classification of people, human beings, people with souls and bruisable feelings, into groups by appearances. They had railed against the unfairness of it all, how it degraded the essence of a human being. What were looks anyways? They were nothing but a superficial extension of a person’s real self, nothing but a feeble projection of a soul. But Blaine knew it was all a spur of the moment façade. He knew what the culture leading up to the implementation of the “prejudice precepts” was like, as they had been so affectionately nicknamed by the public at large. Society was always based upon this unattainable look of “beauty”; a law really did nothing but cement the detrimental social hierarchy that had already been in place for a long while.
What was beauty, anyways? That was something Blaine thought about a lot. Growing up with his dad, who had been employed at these id-ing centers, deciding the fate of a person’s life based on their mere attractiveness, made him question things. When he watched his dad idly shuffle through those faces, watched him glance over the numbers that projected the prospected height, eye color, nose size, facial symmetry, bodily symmetry, height of a person… watching him quickly match it up to the banks of information he had in his head of what was defined as “attractive” or “handsome” or “beautiful”, and then proceed to put this person or that person in this group or that group, decided if they were to be in the top level, the “comelies”, and receive extra income and benefits, or if they were to be in the bottom group, the “unsightlies” as they were called, and therefore put them in a slighted position their entire life (financially and psychologically), sickened him. He was a “comely”; he had enough money to go to private school his entire life and wear clothes that verged on ridiculously expensive and have yes men friends. But he hated it; he was dragged kicking and screaming the entire way as he was made to live the life of a beautiful person.
And so he stood there in that small room, looking at the familiar machinery and remembering what he had thought when he was first brought here, a few months after he had been born and was classified as a “comely”.
“Id room,” his father began. “This is the Id room. Blaine. My shift ends in a few minutes, but I just wanted to give you a sneak peek of your future occupation.”
The Id room had been…. suffocating, to put it lightly. Blaine felt like he needed air as soon as he was brought in.
His father had placed him in a chair nearby him. The other people in the room didn’t bat an eye as Blaine had entered.
When his father had down in his own chair, something had seemed to click, and then the projections in his area of the room whizzed to life.
Blaine gaped.
“You know of this system, think. This is where we decide which group you fall under, “comely” or “unsightly” or somewhere in between. Do you know what group you’re in, Blaine?”
He simply stared on at him, his hazel eyes unblinking and pure.
“Comely. Which means you’re privileged, Blaine. You’re special.”
He smiled at his father.
His father smiled lazily back, and then turned to the rushing blinking faces on the screen in front of him. He was muttering softly to himself, looking at the numbers for a second or two before typing a combination of letters; there were always two different combinations, but they were the only two.
His father had done this process several times in a matter of minutes, and Blaine had stared on, trying to understand what exactly being a “comely” meant. Why were they sorting people into groups?
All of a sudden a beautiful face appeared on screen. His eyes were so astonishingly blue; they had him by surprise. For the few seconds this person’s eyes, ‘Kurt’s’ Blaine amended in his head as his eyes darted above the face to the information, were on the screen, he gazed steadily back. Making eye contact with this ‘Kurt’ made butterflies raise in his stomach. It was such a sickly sweet feeling.
And then they were gone. His father had tapped in a series of letters, and for a brief moment Kurt was reciprocating his eye contact, and then Kurt was gone and the next person was on the screen. Sam. A few seconds and he was gone. Sebastian. A few moments of breathing and he was gone too. Artie. Hundreds of faces flashed by, but Kurt’s blue eyes remained in his mind.
Blaine had later found out that his father hadn’t entered the most favorable combination of letters in for Kurt.
~~
“Koinophilia,” Blaine had said, drawing his stature up. 17 years of experience with dealing with his father told him to stand his ground, even if he felt like collapsing inside. “Averageness. It’s what people find most attractive.”
His dad had been shaking his head softly in the background, tapping his fingers on the dinner table. “Blaine, we’ve been over this.”
“No. We’ve talked about it and you’ve disregarded everything I’ve said.”
His dad sighed and gave an indifferent hand gesture telling Blaine he could go on.
He took a deep breath. “You know what I’m saying is true. You match up people’s faces and what their faces should look like everyday with whatever we as a culture define as something aesthetically pleasing.”
His father shifted impatiently.
“You have all these preset standards that you’re given to determine it. Sexual dimorphism, symmetry, genetics, youth, waist to chest ratio, height, skin color… those are all things you have to consider when you decide to make or break a person’s spirit.”
“Why do you care so much about this, Blaine? You’re at the top; you have absolutely nothing to worry about.”
“What about the people that aren’t at the top? What about them? They don’t have a voice! They don’t have a chance! Not as much as I do.”
“And you deserve that chance,” his father answered.
“No. Someone out there deserves this a lot more than I do.”
“This doesn’t change things, Blaine.”
“But what if we could change things?”
“You’re not getting out of this Blaine.”
“Why? I don’t want this for my life.”
“But this is what you were given.”
“But I don’t fit in here, this can’t be right.”
“It is right and always has been,” his father reprimanded. “You’re a comely. You’re always going to be a comely. And you’re going to like it.”
His father walked away. Blaine could feel the click of his shoes reverberate through his body. He collapsed on the floor.
A 17 year old Kurt Hummel jumped out from behind a grand old clock located near the scene of the confrontation in the Anderson household and quietly made his way toward Blaine.
“It’s okay, baby, Shhh, it’s okay. We’ll make it through this.” He gently rubbed Blaine’s back.
“No it won’t, Kurt, no it won’t! I can’t do this. I’ve played along with him this entire time. He can’t know.”
“Your world is not going to end Blaine. We can make it through this.”
“I can’t lose the rest of my family, Kurt. My mother acts like she cares but I know she’s alienated by me, my brother hates me, my dad is not so fond of me either but he’s still there. He’s all I have left of my family.”
Kurt didn’t know what to say, so he simply placed his pinky under Blaine’s chin and tilted it up.
“Shh,” he whispered. “Even if your family leaves, I’ll always be here for you.”
He softly pressed his lips to Blaine’s.
“They’ll never find out. Everyone thinks you’re part of their class. And you are. You’ve been raised as that. They’ll never see your real records. They’ll never see how your dad messed them up that day in that stifling little room; your dad doesn’t even know he messed them up! You’re still a comely to everyone, and no one will know the wiser.”
Blaine smiled weakly.
“Even if they find out, it won’t be that bad. Trust me, I’ve lived through that traumatic experience. You’ve missed the worst of it. There’s nothing to fear after you’ve finished school.”
“Really?” Blaine asked.
“I promise. The worst that could happen is you having to live without your $3000 designer coats.” He played absently with a loose curl from Blaine’s hair.
“Many of which I’ve lent to you,” Blaine reminded him. Kurt laughed.
“Whatever happens, I’ll be here, okay?”
“Okay,” Blaine repeated. “Thanks, Kurt.”
“It’ll all be okay, I promise.” He pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I promise.”
~~
Blaine Anderson had never taken Kurt Hummel to be a liar.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Blaine Anderson was blessed with the perks of being beautiful in a world where people are literally separated into classes based on being "beautiful" or "ugly". Kurt Hummel was not. This is their journey together in throwing off the world's labels, of finding true beauty among a constellation of charades. This is their love story.
Word Count: this chapter, 1,689
A/N: Hello! This is something I've been working on for a while, and since I like to have stories finished before I post them, also fully completed. This is one of the first legitimately long, chaptered fanfictions I've written, so I'm sort of proud of it, and I hope you can enjoy it! :)
Prologue
Blaine swept his eyes around the tiny room. Tiny silver pinchers, glinting in the bright light, robotically swung back and forth, picking up tiny green computer chips and inserting them into a slot in the wall. The chips landed with a soft clink, which kept his attention by that slot in the wall. In his peripheral vision he could see his father, tapping away at a projected keyboard, eyes trained sternly upwards as a series of animated faces flashed across the screen. The faces were blank, babies blinking into the very first camera they would ever see in their life. Their eyes held wonder and luminosity, but no fear. They were too young to fear what was being done to them, too young to have any reason to mistrust the world.
Around his father were other employees, each giving minimal attention to the faces that were perpetually flashing, an eternal series of trusting blinks and misplaced expectation. The room whirred quietly with the projector’s exertions and the quiet shifting of the employees here in this room, one exactly like the many id-ing centers that had been installed several years ago by the government in every hospital around the globe.
People had tried to resist it of course. People tried to resist this classification of people, human beings, people with souls and bruisable feelings, into groups by appearances. They had railed against the unfairness of it all, how it degraded the essence of a human being. What were looks anyways? They were nothing but a superficial extension of a person’s real self, nothing but a feeble projection of a soul. But Blaine knew it was all a spur of the moment façade. He knew what the culture leading up to the implementation of the “prejudice precepts” was like, as they had been so affectionately nicknamed by the public at large. Society was always based upon this unattainable look of “beauty”; a law really did nothing but cement the detrimental social hierarchy that had already been in place for a long while.
What was beauty, anyways? That was something Blaine thought about a lot. Growing up with his dad, who had been employed at these id-ing centers, deciding the fate of a person’s life based on their mere attractiveness, made him question things. When he watched his dad idly shuffle through those faces, watched him glance over the numbers that projected the prospected height, eye color, nose size, facial symmetry, bodily symmetry, height of a person… watching him quickly match it up to the banks of information he had in his head of what was defined as “attractive” or “handsome” or “beautiful”, and then proceed to put this person or that person in this group or that group, decided if they were to be in the top level, the “comelies”, and receive extra income and benefits, or if they were to be in the bottom group, the “unsightlies” as they were called, and therefore put them in a slighted position their entire life (financially and psychologically), sickened him. He was a “comely”; he had enough money to go to private school his entire life and wear clothes that verged on ridiculously expensive and have yes men friends. But he hated it; he was dragged kicking and screaming the entire way as he was made to live the life of a beautiful person.
And so he stood there in that small room, looking at the familiar machinery and remembering what he had thought when he was first brought here, a few months after he had been born and was classified as a “comely”.
“Id room,” his father began. “This is the Id room. Blaine. My shift ends in a few minutes, but I just wanted to give you a sneak peek of your future occupation.”
The Id room had been…. suffocating, to put it lightly. Blaine felt like he needed air as soon as he was brought in.
His father had placed him in a chair nearby him. The other people in the room didn’t bat an eye as Blaine had entered.
When his father had down in his own chair, something had seemed to click, and then the projections in his area of the room whizzed to life.
Blaine gaped.
“You know of this system, think. This is where we decide which group you fall under, “comely” or “unsightly” or somewhere in between. Do you know what group you’re in, Blaine?”
He simply stared on at him, his hazel eyes unblinking and pure.
“Comely. Which means you’re privileged, Blaine. You’re special.”
He smiled at his father.
His father smiled lazily back, and then turned to the rushing blinking faces on the screen in front of him. He was muttering softly to himself, looking at the numbers for a second or two before typing a combination of letters; there were always two different combinations, but they were the only two.
His father had done this process several times in a matter of minutes, and Blaine had stared on, trying to understand what exactly being a “comely” meant. Why were they sorting people into groups?
All of a sudden a beautiful face appeared on screen. His eyes were so astonishingly blue; they had him by surprise. For the few seconds this person’s eyes, ‘Kurt’s’ Blaine amended in his head as his eyes darted above the face to the information, were on the screen, he gazed steadily back. Making eye contact with this ‘Kurt’ made butterflies raise in his stomach. It was such a sickly sweet feeling.
And then they were gone. His father had tapped in a series of letters, and for a brief moment Kurt was reciprocating his eye contact, and then Kurt was gone and the next person was on the screen. Sam. A few seconds and he was gone. Sebastian. A few moments of breathing and he was gone too. Artie. Hundreds of faces flashed by, but Kurt’s blue eyes remained in his mind.
Blaine had later found out that his father hadn’t entered the most favorable combination of letters in for Kurt.
~~
“Koinophilia,” Blaine had said, drawing his stature up. 17 years of experience with dealing with his father told him to stand his ground, even if he felt like collapsing inside. “Averageness. It’s what people find most attractive.”
His dad had been shaking his head softly in the background, tapping his fingers on the dinner table. “Blaine, we’ve been over this.”
“No. We’ve talked about it and you’ve disregarded everything I’ve said.”
His dad sighed and gave an indifferent hand gesture telling Blaine he could go on.
He took a deep breath. “You know what I’m saying is true. You match up people’s faces and what their faces should look like everyday with whatever we as a culture define as something aesthetically pleasing.”
His father shifted impatiently.
“You have all these preset standards that you’re given to determine it. Sexual dimorphism, symmetry, genetics, youth, waist to chest ratio, height, skin color… those are all things you have to consider when you decide to make or break a person’s spirit.”
“Why do you care so much about this, Blaine? You’re at the top; you have absolutely nothing to worry about.”
“What about the people that aren’t at the top? What about them? They don’t have a voice! They don’t have a chance! Not as much as I do.”
“And you deserve that chance,” his father answered.
“No. Someone out there deserves this a lot more than I do.”
“This doesn’t change things, Blaine.”
“But what if we could change things?”
“You’re not getting out of this Blaine.”
“Why? I don’t want this for my life.”
“But this is what you were given.”
“But I don’t fit in here, this can’t be right.”
“It is right and always has been,” his father reprimanded. “You’re a comely. You’re always going to be a comely. And you’re going to like it.”
His father walked away. Blaine could feel the click of his shoes reverberate through his body. He collapsed on the floor.
A 17 year old Kurt Hummel jumped out from behind a grand old clock located near the scene of the confrontation in the Anderson household and quietly made his way toward Blaine.
“It’s okay, baby, Shhh, it’s okay. We’ll make it through this.” He gently rubbed Blaine’s back.
“No it won’t, Kurt, no it won’t! I can’t do this. I’ve played along with him this entire time. He can’t know.”
“Your world is not going to end Blaine. We can make it through this.”
“I can’t lose the rest of my family, Kurt. My mother acts like she cares but I know she’s alienated by me, my brother hates me, my dad is not so fond of me either but he’s still there. He’s all I have left of my family.”
Kurt didn’t know what to say, so he simply placed his pinky under Blaine’s chin and tilted it up.
“Shh,” he whispered. “Even if your family leaves, I’ll always be here for you.”
He softly pressed his lips to Blaine’s.
“They’ll never find out. Everyone thinks you’re part of their class. And you are. You’ve been raised as that. They’ll never see your real records. They’ll never see how your dad messed them up that day in that stifling little room; your dad doesn’t even know he messed them up! You’re still a comely to everyone, and no one will know the wiser.”
Blaine smiled weakly.
“Even if they find out, it won’t be that bad. Trust me, I’ve lived through that traumatic experience. You’ve missed the worst of it. There’s nothing to fear after you’ve finished school.”
“Really?” Blaine asked.
“I promise. The worst that could happen is you having to live without your $3000 designer coats.” He played absently with a loose curl from Blaine’s hair.
“Many of which I’ve lent to you,” Blaine reminded him. Kurt laughed.
“Whatever happens, I’ll be here, okay?”
“Okay,” Blaine repeated. “Thanks, Kurt.”
“It’ll all be okay, I promise.” He pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I promise.”
~~
Blaine Anderson had never taken Kurt Hummel to be a liar.