Chapter 1: Before.
AN: There is probably going to be some Blaine and Dalton bashing in this fic. I'll try and not make it too harsh, but it is essential to the plot, believe it or not. If you take offense to this, please leave.

AN2: The major inspiration for this fic is the anime/light novel series, the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It isn't required to read/watch it to understand this fic, but I'd suggest it anyway cause it's good :)

If someone asked Dave Karofsky how long he'd believed in aliens, time travelers, ghosts, and other supernatural creatures, he would probably shrug and say, "I don't know, I never really believed in them in the first place. " In reality he always wanted to believe in the existence of supernatural beings, because it was cool. I mean, what kid wanted to grow up and go to school and get a job? Everyone dreamed of becoming a superhero or pirate or a vampire slayer. That is why kids love video games; they immerse people in a world that is not the boring reality that everyone seems used to. So later when Dave entered middle school he settled on trying to be popular. It was the closest he could get to feeling important, and popular kids were treated close to royalty anyway. So he decided the prior fantasies of saving the world would be shelved as childhood dreams and would never be touched upon again for the rest of his life. This was how it was supposed to be for everyone, right?

Of course he would occasionally run into people who seemed to still grasp their fantasies like their life depended on it. Azimio secretly loved comic books, though he hid his fascination to avoid being sorted with the geeks and the like, it went to show that no one in the school fit a stereotype despite how desperately everyone seemed to try to. Then there were the crazy people who still believed in Santa Claus and the like. This primarily referred to Brittany who was popular for her looks and willingness to put out, but she clearly wasn't in sync with the rest of the world. Dave recalled an interesting experience in Algebra last year:

They were sitting next to each other in class due to assigned seating, and she had been taking glances at him all period. He at first thought he was going to be her next target, because she wanted to make out with the whole school apparently, and he hadn't ended up kissing her yet. He wasn't sure how he'd react to this, because what if he kissed her and he hated it? He wouldn't know how to deal with that.

Then she finally turned to him and said, "Karofsky are you an evil spy trying to take over the school?" Thankfully the classroom was already abuzz with talking, so no one heard her except Dave.
"Excuse me?" He was taken aback by this comment. He knew the girl had issues, but he didn't think she was that lost in her mind.
"I mean, you seem kind of mean all the time and I was wondering if you were trying to overthrow us Glee Kids so you would have power to make people do what you wanted and all. I know that is what Sue wants! I'm worried…" Her voice trailed off and she looked uncomfortable and a bit confused.
"No, I'm not trying to take over the school. I'm just putting people in their place." He harshly retorted.
"Well," she said in a tone as sassy as Brittany could muster with her dim voice, "I think it is mean and that you have some other motives behind them. I'm watching you Karofsky." She turned abruptly with a "hpmh" and refused to look at him the rest of the period.
Oddly enough Dave didn't feel threatened by this, and decided it wasn't worth fighting with Brittany so he continued what he was doing.

For a long time Dave's world continued on its normal track. Yeah he was majorly jealous of Hudson for a lot of reasons, and (even though he wouldn't admit it) he would like to swap lives with the guy, but his life was close enough to where it wanted to be. Except that one major obstacle that kept bombarding him again and again.
The obstacle pretty much took the human form of Kurt Hummel. God, Kurt Hummel, where to begin with him? First off was the fact that the guy was so open and flamboyant and was up in people's faces about it. It ticked Dave off and he couldn't really explain the reason why if he was asked. The second thing was the fact that Kurt could sing and dance in front of the school in a group, and he seemed like he didn't think twice about it. The third thing was how reality seemed to twist for Dave in his presence. He couldn't go near the boy without saying something stupid or embarrassing himself or shoving him or his friends into a locker. He didn't really know what it was at first; he explained to himself that it was just because he disliked the guy for being gay and it squicked him out or something. In reality he couldn't help but admire the guy a lot. He had more guts than pretty much everyone in the school. Kurt knew he would be tormented for being how he was, but he didn't seem to give a fuck. Dave was the opposite; he hid anything that he was ashamed of. For example, he pretended not to be able to sing because he knew Finn would try and recruit him to Glee club. When the guys would get together to play Rock Band and everything, he would never take the singing part and tell them, "I sound like a dying cat when I sing."

Dave's thoughts became extremely jarring when sometime at the end of junior year; Kurt began to pop up in Dave's mind more than it should have. In his dreams Kurt would always make some sort of cameo. Except in these dreams Dave never really interacted with Kurt in the same way. In one of the more revealing dreams, Dave needed to sing a song to pass science (which was being taught by , once again proving the inaccuracies of the mind), and Kurt helped him sing by doing some duet that he didn't really remember. He felt in sync with Kurt, as if he could be free and no one would care who he was. Dave first woke up he thought back on it and freaked out that he had sung in front of people, while being simultaneously happy at the memory of he and Kurt bonding. Of course then he realized it was a dream, and for some reason he felt disappointed. That was when he started to understand the reason why he hated Kurt. This could also explain why he hated Hudson, if he thought about it without denying everything. Kurt liked Hudson, but Hudson was heterosexual. This was conflicting but he couldn't help but to want both things at once. Dave liked Kurt and it was becoming increasingly harder to block it out of his mind.

So in junior year, he couldn't stand it anymore. Kurt's presence changed everything he wanted to be and it scared him. He began to increase the locker chucks and insults. In the beginning he would only really do those in Azimio's presence, but he began to stray from his partner-in-crime and started attacking on a more personal level. After a while it seemed to get to Kurt as well, which surprised Dave to be honest. He never thought of Kurt as someone who would ever be bugged by that sort of thing. It was his goal in the first place to get this sort of reaction from him, but once it happened he felt slightly guilty. There was a part of his mind that was still screaming for him to get Kurt on his good side, but it was equally proportional to the part of him that was desperately pushing it all back. This then offset the balance of the universe, and caused the reality shifting that would forever be burned into the minds of both Dave and Kurt. The Kiss. The thought of that event left Dave reeling in horror and embarrassment. How could he have lost himself like that? After that the truth behind everything became glaringly evident and he could no longer suppress his thoughts. This is probably what caused his deterioration that happened within the couple weeks afterwards, which led to Kurt transferring and the world becoming much easier. The world would not be so kind as to end things like this though.

During winter break, the Karofsky family always had a huge reunion at Dave's uncle's house, which happened to be very big and have enough room for a huge amount of people to squeeze in there, though not without discomfort. Dave had an older sister away at college who he wasn't very close to, but he had tons of cousins of all ages. You could hear the noise of kids everywhere. Screaming, crying, and laughing rang through the hallways. Some of his cousins he got along with well and others he wanted to duct tape their mouths and limbs so they shut up and stopped moving for a while.
His favorite cousin however, was Jillian. She was one of the cousins who lived at the house full-time. She was a fairly laid back girl, despite the fact that she went to a private catholic school and those were notorious for some of the evil girls that people hear about. She liked videogames and action movies, which gave Dave and her common ground to talk over Right now they were playing Super Smash Bros.
"So Dave, how's your life doing?" She asked, her attention mainly focused on beating the crap out of Dave's character, but she seemed calm on the outside.
"Same as always really, I can't say my life is particularly eventful. How about you? Got anything interesting going on?"
"Not much really. Broke up with my boyfriend a week ago," she sighed.
"You only went out for a couple months it seems. What did he do?" Dave questioned.

"Well, he was a Dalton boy. They all are a bit fake."

Dave pretended that this didn't catch his interest. That's right, Dalton was right nearby Jillian's school. He didn't know much about the place but it is where Kurt then went, and so did the short flakey guy that confronted him with Kurt. From what he saw of that guy, he didn't like. He didn't even know Dave or go to his school, but he confronted him in a stairway where anyone could walk up at any second and shouted clichés like "it is totally normal" and "you are not alone" that he has heard a million times in the past.
"Really," Dave feigned boredom, "I don't know much about Dalton. What's it like anyway?"
"Well for one the place creeps me out. My school has a lot of stuck up preppy girls obsessed with tradition, but we don't take it nearly quite as seriously as them. They kinda cross the line with how obsessed with their posh ways they are. They also all pretend to get along so well, but a lot of them seem to secretly hate each other and are rivals and all. The guys there lack individuality; they are like a beehive of people just following the rules. If you know one Dalton boy, you know pretty much anyone who he hangs out with. "
"Really? Sounds annoying. I would probably suffocate in that environment."
"I know right! Well my ex was weird. He missed a date with me to go to a "traditional" garden party. What the fuck is a garden party anyway?"

"They sound likes losers. You could do better Jill."
"You bet I can!" She won the battle.

"What was his name?"
"Benjamin Green. Facebook him if you want. You should never date a private school kid, they wouldn't be your type I think."
"I'll keep that in mind."

Later Dave did look the guy up on Facebook through Jillian's account. He rationalized it wasn't stalking if he was doing it for his cousin. The guy's profile wasn't blocked for the most part, and he could look at his friends. Kurt Hummel was listed. He smiled to himself a bit; it was funny how small the world was sometimes. Oh well, it didn't really matter much. Kurt would probably end up dating one of those flaky Dalton boys (most likely the short hair-gelled one) and he would have a perfect relationship with tea parties or whatever gay private school kids did on dates. Dave decided that he shouldn't care at all.

Benjamin Green's facebook had hardly any statuses. The ones it had were a bit lame:
Fruit Sculpting Club competition coming up! Gotta get ready Leo Baker Josh Sackett

Need Bio homework! Can someone e-mail it to me? Thnx
Woo the Warblers are great! Keep on the awesome people. Wes Montgomery

Pssh… Dalton guys sounded like total losers. In the back of his mind, a part of him whispered to him "Kurt could do better. If you put yourself together you'd be good enough and what's-his-face Dalton!boy would hardly be competition."
"Shut up, brain." He whispered aloud and he smacked himself with a nearby book. That would never happen, and he shouldn't even start to think that it is possible.

That night he dreamed he was on a huge stage. The audience was empty and it was completely silent, except a slight creaking of the floorboards. Then he started singing a song, he wasn't even sure if it existed in reality, he just seemed to make up the words as he went along. After he was finished he heard the clapping of one person. Kurt Hummel had appeared (as usual), and he was smiling. Dave woke up disappointed.