Title: Damned If You Do (1/?)
by: kaiyrah
Fandom: Glee
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: PG13 for now, will go up in future chapters
Word Count: ~5300 for this part
Spoilers/Warnings: No spoilers. AU. WIP. Dark!Blaine (kind of). Witchcraft, demons, dark arts, black magic, sorcery, all that good stuff. Some blood/violence, secondary (and tertiary?) character death. Coarse language. Twisting a bit of mythology and demonology.
Summary: With the discovery of his family's grimoire, Blaine realizes that he can use his gift to put an end to the violence, suffering, and other ailments plaguing the human race. But when the world starts changing in ways he didn't expect and the love of his life starts to drift further and further away, he'll have to decide - is it all worth it in the end?
A/N: Happy Halloween, everyone! :) I forgot to mark it (and it's too much hassle to go back and reupload), but the events of the prologue were set two years before the events of this chapter and subsequent chapters. Basically, the prologue happened when Blaine was a freshman, and this picks up when he's a junior (I'm ignoring the whole "Blaine is a grade under Kurt" thing, as you'll see).
Present Day.
A quick glance out the window at the moon hanging high in the sky told Blaine that it was time to go. He moved quickly, rummaging through the chest at the foot of his bed, sweeping four blue candles into his messenger bag.
11:23, the red digital numbers on his nightstand read. He had to hurry up.
He stopped in front of his parents' closed door - just to hear the both of them snoring - and grabbed his keys from the dish by the front door, thanking the stars for his car's quiet engine.
The drive to David's house was silent. His eyes unconsciously drifted to the rearview mirror - his breath catching every time he saw headlights approaching, and he sighed in relief every time they passed. He never liked doing this - sneaking out, hiding the truth from his parents, but he'd be lying if he said that he didn't enjoy the resulting adrenaline rush. Besides, it wasn't like he was doing anything bad - and even if he were to tell the truth, would they believe it?
Hey Mom, Dad. I'm a witch and I've been sneaking out to do spells. He snorted. Yeah. That would go over really well.
A while ago David mentioned that magic ran in families. Neither one of his parents ever said anything about being a witch though - and that probably meant one of three things. One, they didn't know about the magic - unlikely. Two, neither of them were witches and thus didn't feel the need to share the family history... Or three, they knew about it, were ashamed of it, and hoped that Blaine would never find out.
"Too late now," he muttered almost guiltily.
But before he could think on that subject any more, he pulled up to David's house and grabbed the messenger bag from the passenger seat, locking the door as he hurried up to the porch. The light was on in the kitchen, the translucent drapes showing a shadowed figure pacing about and then finally moving toward the direction of the front door.
Blaine pried out his cell phone from his pocket, but before he could even place a call, he was on the porch and Wes had opened the door.
"Hurry up," Wes gestured inside the house, and Blaine obediently stepped in. "David and Thad are already downstairs."
Wes led him into the basement, and immediately the scent of thyme and rosemary hit his nose. Sure enough, Thad was leaning over a small dish in the center of the floor, scattering a neat circle of herbs around it. David sat in a chair against the wall, finishing up his task of cutting what looked like a human-shaped figure out of flash paper, and his head snapped up at the sound of footsteps.
"Thank god, you're finally here," he said, jumping to his feet. "You have the candles?"
Blaine unzipped his bag and knelt to the floor, setting the candles down clockwise around the dish, and he kicked his bag across the floor until it hit the wall. "There. Are we ready?"
Wes took a glance at his watch. "Just about. It's going to be twelve o'clock in a minute or so. Sit down, gentlemen."
Each of them took a seat on the floor behind the line of herbs and Wes rolled a vial of oil between his fingers, pulling out the cork stopper and keeping his eyes on his watch. After what seemed like forever, he placed his thumb over the mouth of the vial, leaving just a tiny space, and sprinkled the oil over the line of herbs. He sat back down and set the vial on the floor to his left, and reached out with palms up to Thad and Blaine on either side of him.
They took his hands, and David took theirs. Blaine closed his eyes, feeling the energy from both David and Wes curling into his center, and a moment later Thad was there too. He pulled the force in from their joined hands and pushed it back out the same way, letting some of it trail up his throat and he exhaled through his mouth, letting the steady, pulsating energy settle into the sprigs of rosemary and thyme. The herbs sparked as if they had been brought to life.
"That should be sufficient," Wes murmured, and he slipped his hand from Blaine's. Once again he took the vial of oil and poured a little on his thumb, and he passed it to Blaine. Blaine copied the action and handed it then to David. He watched a small drop roll down the side of his thumb, trailing a path to his wrist.
Thad set the vial down again with a soft clink, and Blaine looked up. He went through the same motions as the others - picked up the candle in front of him, set his thumb at the base, spun it round in his free hand until the oil spanned the circumference of the candle, and then he set it down once again. David passed around a washcloth to wipe the remaining oil from their fingers, and in the meantime he busied himself with lighting the candles. Blaine took in a breath as soon as the first candle was lit; immediately he felt the warmth, the tension from the flame ignite within him and fill him up.
Once the candles were all lit, Wes placed a lock of black hair and a slip of white paper into the dish, and David took a pen from his pocket to write on the paper doll.
Katia Thompson, he wrote on the figure's chest, and tumor, on the figure's head.
He put the figure on top of the slip of paper and lock of hair and held his palms out, and once again, the group joined hands.
"Any particular incantation?" Blaine asked quietly.
David shook his head, keeping his eyes on the figure in the dish. "The doll will do all the work. We just need to charge it."
Blaine turned his gaze back to the figure, and when he focused, he could feel the combined energy of Wes, Thad, and David all pouring into the doll. He exhaled, breathing his own force into the doll as well. The air around the figure rippled and flowed with constant tension, push and pull of four strong, living breathing forces as well as the charged, purifying energy of the herbs and the warm, flickering pulse of the candles.
He thought about David's sister - he only met Katia a few times, but she was always so full of life and spunk. He thought about her quick quips at her brother's expense and her enthusiasm for all things related to music. He thought about her crush on Thad, and how David teased her mercilessly about it. He thought about her in only the best light, he thought about her living out the rest of her days strong and healthy.
The doll's energy pulsed again, and they each broke hands and grasped a candle. All four lowered their candle's flame to the slip of paper. The flames charred and curled slowly at the paper's edges, the acrid smell of burning hair permeating the basement air. One of the flames licked at the doll's arm, and the entire figure went up in a ball of flames leaving no remains in its wake. The slip of paper underneath continued to burn, and it took only a minute or two before the fire reduced the contents of the dish to ash.
David was the first to blow out his candle, and the rest of the group followed his example. They watched the smoke curl up higher and higher from the dish, watched as it dissipated.
"She'll be okay, right?" Thad whispered, his voice cracking a bit.
David sighed and didn't say anything for a few moments. Then he set his candle down. "I hope so."
His mother didn't usually let him do much to help with dinner. Maybe it was better that way; he didn't exactly have a stellar track record with cooking - though he was proud to say that he could at least boil water safely for instant noodles.
Alice stuck out a ladle full of broth for him to try, and he slurped a bit into his mouth, letting the sour, hearty flavor coat his tongue. "Delicious, Mom. Did you put extra radishes in there?"
She smiled and pulled the ladle back to stir the mixture boiling in the pot. "That's how you like it, right?"
Blaine snuck a kiss to his mother's cheek in response.
"Are you finished with the eggplant?"
"Just about." He finished up chopping the last bit. The pieces were uneven, but his mother didn't comment on that and emptied his handiwork into the pot.
"Are you working tomorrow?"
"I'm working tonight, actually," Alice said, taking a quick glance at the wall clock. "How's school? We haven't really talked much since I went on nights."
"School is school," Blaine replied with a shrug. "We've honestly just been worrying about David's sister."
"I talked to Rosa in pediatrics. She's taking good care of Katia."
"I know she is. And I know that there's nothing else we can do right now and the rest is up to Katia, but still... I just wish there was something else we could do." Aside from the healing spell that he, David, Thad and Wes had performed the night before. And there was no guarantee that it would work, anyway - it was a fight between witchcraft and nature when it came to trying to cure the sick. Although David said that his parents had been working on healing spells as well - with that much intent, there had to be some effect, right?
Which got him thinking again - David's comment about magic in families hadn't left him alone, and the curiosity had begun to take its toll. In addition to staying up late to assist his friend with healing rituals, there was still the troubling question of where his own magic came from.
By the time his father came home, dinner was ready and on the table. His mother and father exchanged pleasantries and the customary married-couple-nagging before his father turned to him. "Something the matter, sport? You're quiet."
Blaine abruptly stopped pushing the pork rib around on his plate. There had to be a way to find out about the whole witch thing without actually using the word. "So... our family's been in the U.S. for a long time, right?"
Kenneth nodded. "The Andersons have a long history in the state. We've been here since at least the mid-1800s, if not the early 1800s when Ohio entered the Union."
"How did you guys meet then? I mean, it doesn't really seem likely that Mom hopped on a plane over here from the Philippines and decided that she wanted to settle down specifically in Ohio."
Both of his parents gave a small laugh at that. "That's true," Alice said with a smile. "I did not imagine living here at first, but your dad was very persuasive about settling down where he grew up. You know he was in the Marines when we met?"
Blaine remembered sifting through old albums and seeing photos of his father in his dress uniform, but he'd never thought to ask about it until now. "You met Mom during one of your assignments? Where?"
"Kaneohe, in Hawaii," Kenneth said a little too quickly. Blaine raised an eyebrow.
"I came to the United States for a better life," Alice explained. "As did a lot of my friends."
Absently he picked at the rib with the tines of his fork. His mom never really mentioned her family, or her home life. He didn't even know her maiden name - small details like that, simple things that he should have known but didn't - were probably the things that bothered him the most.
The only photo he had of his mother was an old sepia image of her elementary school class - probably taken when she was about eight years old. There were no shots of her family, no keepsakes, no mementos. Just that single photograph. It was almost as if she was born in the Philippines but didn't actually start living until she moved to the U.S.
"Any brothers or sisters?" Blaine asked.
"We're not close," his mother responded, and Blaine didn't fail to notice the slightly icy undertone to her voice. "I stopped talking to them a long time ago. Why do you ask, Darling?"
"We were discussing genealogy in class," he lied, then paused. "What happened, exactly?"
Kenneth shot Alice a worried look, and she simply smiled. It looked a bit too bright. "Let's talk about that some other time, okay? I have to start getting ready for work."
Blaine glanced at the clock, which read 6:42. Her shift started at 11, and the hospital was a fifteen minute drive, but he didn't press further and he finished his dinner in silence.
"Darling, can you put these boxes in the attic?"
Blaine sighed at the sound of his mother's voice drifting down the hall and pushed himself up to a sitting position on his bed. He'd been waiting for an excuse to be distracted from his reading for U.S. history, but... cleaning wasn't exactly an upgrade from homework.
He sat for a few minutes, deliberating if he wanted to actually get up or fall back down on his bed and pretend to take a nap.
"Blaine!" his mother yelled shrilly.
He winced. Well, decision made. After about another minute, he stood up and wandered down the hall, where he spotted three Xerox boxes stacked outside of the library-slash-home office.
His mother returned with yet another Xerox box, labeling it with a permanent marker, and she shot him a glare.
"When I call you, I expect you to answer," she said sharply, pushing the box into his arms with a little more force than was necessary.
"I got caught up in homework," Blaine answered, frowning. Unless I'm not supposed to study anymore was on the tip of his tongue, but he wisely refrained from speaking it.
"Go put these in the attic," she said again. "And clean your bathroom when you're done."
He sighed, "Yes Mom."
It was not an elegant affair, traversing the ladder while trying to balance a box full of books in one arm, but somehow he managed. After a bit of fumbling, his hand finally found the string for the light switch. The dim yellow light beamed out as far as it could, leaving the far corners of the room untouched. Involuntarily he shuddered.
Something about the attic always creeped him out. Maybe it was just a side-effect of all the dust, maybe it was the fact that there was only one tiny window at the highest point of the wall so it was perpetually dark. Either way, he usually avoided it whenever he could - last time he'd been up here was probably spring cleaning three years ago.
The rest of the boxes that housed books were in the far left - darkest, he noted ominously - corner of the attic. He set down the first box, shaking out his dying arm, and hurried down the ladder to retrieve the rest.
The minute he set down the very last box, a heavy thump echoed behind him.
"What the-!" He jumped and whipped around. Robber? Serial killer?
No one was there. Just dust, boxes, and antiques. Same as before.
His heart crashing violently into his ribcage, he reached down into one of the boxes and grabbed a hardcover version of Atlas Shrugged, poising it in front of him like a weapon. He held his breath, inching around the attic, waiting for something to jump back out and attack him.
One step forward.
Nothing.
Two steps.
Nothing.
Three, four, five.
Still nothing.
He circled all the way back to the attic entrance and, finally convinced that no one else was there, gave a heavy sigh. He set his book down.
Thump.
He spun around - again. Nothing.
Except for a rather beat-up looking leather suitcase sitting in the middle of the floor like it belonged there.
Blaine sighed in relief, kneeling down in front of the suitcase. So this was the culprit. Probably fell from one of the high shelves. It sounded pretty heavy though - what exactly was in there?
He attempted to pull up on the two latches on either side of the handle. No go. "Hmm."
He glanced back at the attic opening. The water pipes creaked, and the distant whoosh of rushing water filled his ears.
His hands hovered over the latches, sharpening and focusing his energy. "Undo the lock, reveal your secrets. Undo the lock, reveal your secrets."
Nothing. A low noise of frustration escaped his throat, and he shook out his hands. Apparently he needed to brush up on his unlocking spells...
What was it again? Undo... unlock... key.
Key. He moved the suitcase so that the light shone right above it, and he sat down again and focused his energy, purifying and extracting the cast-off heat from the bulb and pulling it down to his fingers.
"I am the key," he declared. The light flickered. "Reveal your secrets. I am the key, reveal your secrets. I am the key, reveal your secrets."
The latches flipped up.
He grinned and eagerly pushed the lid back, letting the beaten leather fall against the attic floor.
The contents of the suitcase were unobtrusive enough - but they were definitely too light to produce sounds as loud as the ones he'd heard.
The first thing he noticed was an antique gold pocket watch with a filigree design. It sat atop an aged leather-bound book, probably the same size as a textbook, with the script La Familia Castillo burned onto the cover, along with an image of two intertwined snakes. A journal of some sort, maybe?
Blaine shifted his position a bit so his shadow didn't fall over the book, and he opened to a random page.
No, definitely not a journal.
Hundreds of pages of writings in Spanish, illustrations of bizarre creatures. His breath caught as he turned the pages. Countless symbols and ancient sigils leapt to life and pierced right through his eyes, burning permanent images into his brain.
He'd seen grimoires before - David consulted his often, and Wes and Thad also used theirs to a lesser extent. But this was his own - this was his family's - and after two years of wondering its whereabouts, he'd finally found it. Clearly he was meant to find it, considering that he'd done so even though it had been under lock and key probably with the intention of never being used again. But why exactly?
There was only one thing he was sure of at this point - witchcraft definitely ran on his mother's side. Finally he knew her family name - Castillo, and her ancestors in the Philippines quite obviously had Spanish roots.
His fingers shook slightly, running over the yellowed pages. Just how old was this thing anyway?
But before he could examine it further, his mother's voice rang out into the hallway below, reminding him to clean the bathroom while she started on lunch.
He heard her footsteps creaking on the steps heading down to the kitchen. When they slowly faded away, he slipped the watch into his pocket and tucked the grimoire under his arm, intending to examine it in full later.
A lot could change in two years, especially for a high school student.
Two years meant hanging out with different people. Two years meant gaining respect as an upperclassman. Two years meant being that much closer to 18, and that much closer to being an adult.
Blaine was no exception. Gone was the shy, awkward freshman who got beaten half to death - in his place was a confident, proud 17-year-old who climbed his way to the top of the social mountain with the Warblers as his harness.
It had been David's suggestion to revamp the Warblers so that their little circle would become the councilmembers and lead soloist. Blaine thought it was a stupid idea at first - what good would that do, taking over the school's glee club? It was important that no one found out about their shared secret - so why deliberately place themselves in the spotlight?
It had taken Blaine a while to understand. It was all about control.
Or rather, how he had no control two years ago when those bullies beat him up. And how he gained control when David showed him his family's grimoire and taught him everything he knew. How, regardless of Dalton's no-bullying policy, he refused to be the victim any longer - how he took hold of this gift and refused to let it go to waste.
The others had various reasons for wanting to take over the council - ranging from college application purposes to desires for popularity to just why the hell not? And ultimately he figured - witches were ambitious people. End of story.
He was in the middle of fourth period when Wes sent him a text message. Warblers performance in the senior commons after 4th. Most of his trig classmates were also covertly reading their screens. Blaine couldn't decide whether it was creepy or convenient that his fellow witch had the phone numbers to half of the student body. Probably both.
As soon as the bell rang, he shot up out of his seat and hurried past the crowd, past the excited chatter and the declarations of "What song are they gonna do, you think?" It brought a smile to his face - moments like this reminded him that this witches-and-Warbler council thing was a pretty good idea after all.
There was a small traffic jam just before he hit the staircase which made him wonder if he was going to make it - not like they were going to start without him, but he really didn't care to have Wes nagging at him for being late. He pulled out the watch that he'd taken from the attic - with a little fiddling, he'd managed to get it to work again. Still making good time. As his fingers absently ran over the filigree design, he heard someone speaking - to him?
"Excuse me."
He turned to see a boy dressed in a jacket and red tie. His eyes pierced right through Blaine, intense... but somehow vulnerable. He couldn't quite identify the color of them.
"Um, hi. Can I ask you a question? I'm new here."
It was an obvious lie. Blaine lost track of how many times the dean yelled at students to tuck their shirts in, so there was no way that someone would be walking around here in free dress unless they were a visitor. The guy was cute though, and Blaine almost didn't care that he would be late to the performance. He stuck out his hand, amused, and smiled. "My name's Blaine."
"Kurt." The moment Kurt shook his hand, it took all of Blaine's willpower not to jump back in surprise.
Sparks. Kurt's energy and his own crackled wildly at their joined palms, quickly pulsing, intense and full of life. The force from the other boy spiked, sending a shock that Blaine felt all the way down to his toes. It raced through his system like a trail of fire, leaving ice cold numbness in its wake. It was multi-layered, complex... It was unlike any energy he'd ever felt before.
"Are you...?"
He looked back up to Kurt's eyes, so bright and wide and questioning, and he gripped Kurt's hand just a little tighter. He focused on Kurt's energy, searched for that warm familiarity of a witch's touch.
There was something there.
Kurt pulled his hand away much too soon and fidgeted a bit, eyes darting around at the students rushing by. "So what exactly is going on?"
"The Warblers. Every now and then they throw an impromptu performance in the senior commons. Tends to shut the school down for a while," Blaine grinned. He liked to think that he was entitled to a little bragging every now and then.
"Wait, so the glee club here is kind of cool?"
And then it hit Blaine - there was no flicker of recognition in Kurt's eyes, no solidarity, no automatic, instinctual camaraderie of hey, I know you. Probably not a witch then... Or at least he hadn't awakened his powers yet. He still couldn't tell the difference at times - best that he got a second opinion.
"The Warblers are like rock stars," he said, taking in Kurt's stunned expression. "Come on, I know a shortcut."
He grabbed Kurt's hand again and fought back a shiver. The hallway filled with their combined pulsing and flowing energy, the waves reaching all the way up to the crown molding. Sparks.
As it turned out, David, Wes and Thad couldn't reach a verdict either.
"There's something different about him, I'll give you that," David shrugged. "He probably is one of us. Maybe he just can't sense energies yet. It's hard to tell when they're at that early stage."
"Are you sure you're not singling him out just because you want to get in his pants?" Thad asked, waggling his eyebrows. Blaine had rolled his eyes and pointedly ignored the flush creeping up his neck.
No, it wasn't that. Kurt was nice to look at though, he wouldn't deny that.
They did learn that he was bullied at his school because he was gay - the story was so familiar to Blaine that it hurt, so he doled out the advice that he thought best at the time - told Kurt to stand up to his bullies.
Fine. Maybe it was a bit of an experiment - to see if Kurt really was a witch. Maybe he just needed a little nudge, a little bit of anger to awaken his powers. Of course there might have been the slight chance that Blaine had read the situation wrong and Kurt wasn't a witch after all - but his life force was so much stronger, so much more involved than others, it couldn't have been for naught, right?
...Right?
He sent a quick text to Kurt during fifth period, COURAGE, feeling a curious combination of empowerment and paranoia battling for dominance in his gut. He tried to remind himself that Kurt never actually specified if that bully of his ever got violent. Still, he felt an unmistakable quiet dread thrumming his nerves when he didn't hear back from Kurt even after sixth period.
The silence proved far too loud - he actually startled a bit when Wes entered the room for their group's usual soloist-slash-councilmember (read: witches-only) meeting before the rest of the group joined them for rehearsal. His friend gave him an odd look.
Blaine held up his phone. "Expecting a text."
Wes gave a chuckle of amusement, and Blaine wanted to wipe that knowing smirk right off his face. "From Kurt?"
Blaine narrowed his eyes. "Yes, from Kurt."
"From 'just a friend' Kurt."
"Yes," Blaine said crossly. "That Kurt."
"Hmm. I see," was all Wes said, and he sat down at the council table, pulling out what looked to be notes from econ and he quickly looked them over.
"Oh god," Blaine rolled his eyes.
"Is something the matter?"
"If you're going to judge me, at least be upfront about it. Don't pretend to be doing something else."
"I'm not judging."
Blaine gave him a dirty look.
"I'm not," Wes insisted, that same smug smile on his face. "I simply find it amusing that with the way you were looking at him yesterday, 'just a friend' Kurt would be pregnant by now if he were a woman."
Blaine's face grew hot. "I just really got into the performance, alright? Besides, I wanted him to trust me so that we could figure him out."
"Yes, he's quite the enigma."
He frowned, thinking back to the discovery of the grimoire last weekend. He hadn't had the chance to tell any of them about it yet. Well, now was as good a chance as any. "He's not the only one. I found my - "
Thad chose that moment to storm into the room and throw himself onto a couch.
"I am such an idiot."
Wes and Blaine exchanged looks. Thad was usually known to be a bit dramatic. Sometimes it was hard to tell what actually bothered him and what didn't. "What's wrong?"
"You know that girl I've been seeing, Rhonda?"
Blaine had heard quite a few... interesting stories, but never had he actually met the girl. "What about her?"
"Turns out she has a boyfriend. Would've been nice to know that before he found me fucking her in the backseat of her Lexus."
Wes made a face.
"Yeah, tell me about it. Dammit, this is why I don't do taken chicks - too much of a mess to deal with once their boyfriends or husbands or whatever find out."
"You probably wouldn't have that problem if only you could control your dick," Blaine said pointedly. "But that does suck. Sorry."
"Ugh, it shouldn't be this difficult to find an unattached girl who just wants sex," Thad reasoned.
Blaine shot Wes a look as if to ask did he not hear a word I just said about control? to which Wes responded with a shrug.
"Well, my condolences to you, Thad," Wes said slowly, and Blaine had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing out loud at his quietly condescending tone. "I'm sure you'll find another one soon."
Luckily Thad was too busy wallowing in self-pity to notice.
"What were you saying before, Blaine?" Wes asked. "You found something?"
"Huh? Oh yeah, I found my - "
The door creaked open again, and Blaine snapped around with every intention to tell the intruder to go the hell away, but he saw that it was only David, and he impatiently beckoned him to come in.
"Hey, David. Hurry up, there's something you should know."
David sluggishly stepped in and pressed his back against the heavy wooden door. The solid, heavy thud of the door closing sounded like a death sentence.
Wes eyed him. "David, are you alright?"
David sank down to the couch next to Thad. Blaine's throat went dry at the blank expression in his dark eyes, and he didn't fail to notice the cell phone clutched tightly in David's hand. He gripped it so tight his hand shook.
"David?" Thad pressed, putting a hand on his shoulder.
David was silent for the longest time. Then finally he looked up, stared at a distant spot on the wall, and quietly spoke, "I just got off the phone with my mom. Katia's... Katia's dead."
TBC