Warning: Those of you who were upset by anything that happened in "The First Time" should tread carefully here.

The address Tina gave them was in the middle of a development that was caught at the worst possible time by the real estate and banking crash. A few houses had been completed, but the loans for both the builders and potential buyers dried up. Now they were abandoned, darkened and battered titans standing lonely in the middle of vast dirt lots.

The thing was, they still looked like the typical modern suburban house: two stories, gables, nice open porch... the very latest in early 21st century cookie cutter architecture. But after four years of neglect, the paint was peeling, the porch railings rotted by termites, the window glass broken. Police patrols tried, with limited resources and interest, to keep out squatters and thrill-seeking kids, but usually failed, as evidenced by the trash and graffiti.

Blaine supposed that was the reason why Tina used it for her magick: isolated, but with just enough shelter to keep her rituals away from the elements. As the car pulled up along the cracked, grass-infested asphalt, he could feel Dave shift nervously in his seat.

"This really the place?"

Blaine nodded as he killed the engine; now, with only the barest hiss of the wind outside, the silence was eerie. "Yep."

"I don't see any lights inside..."

"She's probably covering them up. Or she's in a room we can't see from here." Blaine felt an ironic smirk come over his face. "You're not scared, are you?"

"Fuck you!" The exclamation wasn't nearly as angry or as hostile as Blaine was expecting. "We're wired to be afraid of the dark. It's fucking species memory, okay?"

"Well, I don't think any lions are waiting inside to eat us," Blaine said dryly, "so we'll probably be fine." He unbuckled his seat belt, and watched as Dave did the same. "We're in the home stretch now," he said quietly. "You'll exist soon."

Dave exhaled, a long, almost sighing breath. "Yeah, well, I'm not counting my chickens 'til the fat lady sings."

Blaine wrinkled his nose. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

"Yep," Dave grinned. "But seriously, the point still stands. I've..." The grin vanished, as if blown away on the wind. "I've watched too many good things go to shit to trust it until it actually happens in front of me."

"I... I know what you mean. But the sooner we get inside and meet Tina, the sooner that will happen."

Dave nodded. "Yeah." He got out of the car; Blaine did the same, taking with him a pair of flashlights he'd borrowed at Trent's. He handed one to Dave and clicked his on.

Small dunes of dirt crunched under their shoes as they walked across the so-called "front lawn" towards the house. "I don't see Tina's car," Blaine muttered.

"That's probably a good thing," Dave replied. "The way we're parked, if the cops come by..." Blaine shivered, though from the cold or thinking about their last encounter with the police, he wasn't sure.

"Should I move it?"

Dave shrugged. "Up to you."

Blaine's feet wouldn't stop moving, no matter how much he thought about commanding them to. "Well, hopefully, we'll be finished before anyone thinks to patrol this place."

Dave's flashlight beam wavered — for what reason, Blaine couldn't say. "The sooner the better," he said, and Blaine was far from disagreeing with him.

The boards creaked noisily as the two stepped onto the porch, though more from Dave's weight than from Blaine's; Blaine found himself checking to make sure that the porch was barely a few feet off the ground, just in case something broke. The front door was ajar. Dave reached up to push it open, then paused, turning to Blaine. "You sure this is the right place? Because if we walk in on a bunch of hobos with shotguns or something..."

Blaine rolled his eyes and shoved the door open. "Yes, I'm sure. We'll be fine."

The interior was as depressingly decrepit as the exterior: the carpet was alternately faded, ripped up, or stained with dark splashes that Blaine did not want to go anywhere near. A few pieces of furniture — a worn couch here, a dining room chair there, a broken glass coffee table — spoke of a time when the house was a model, meant to entice potential buyers and lend a feeling of hope for the development; this could be someone's home someday. Now those little touches just made the place feel more pathetic.

"Tina?" Blaine called out, his voice rather softer and more raspy than he'd intended; he refused to think that he might've been spooked by Dave's ridiculous hobos with shotguns paranoia. Nevertheless, the voice carried; he was a singer, after all. And there was no response.

Dave nodded towards a set of stairs leading towards a second floor. "Think she's upstairs?"

"I think I saw a set of basement windows too, so she might be there."

"Wanna split up?" Blaine whirled on Dave in astonishment, stopping short when he saw the cheeky grin on the other teen's face. "Just kidding. Always wanted to say that, though."

Blaine punched Dave in the shoulder, a gesture remarkably without rancor. "We need to stick together. It's for both our sakes."

Dave nodded. "Try upstairs first, then?" He started towards the stairs.

"I don't know." Blaine pointed his flashlight to his right, illuminating a small dining room. "Who knows what condition those stairs are in? Maybe we should try the basement first; that way we—" He turned back towards Dave.

But he wasn't there.

Blaine knew he'd only looked away for a second — not enough time for Dave to have gone up the stairs or into another room. He would've heard something if he had. Dave had just...

Disappeared.

Blaine couldn't move; he could barely think. Did the erasure finally catch up to Dave? But no, he still remembered Dave Karofsky, as clearly as before. But then what the hell could've—

He

blinked

... again. When he opened his eyes, he was home in his bedroom in Westerville.

By this time, his brain was screaming this isn't right, this isn't right... It had to be magic; it had to be. But shouldn't Tina's charm have protected him? Then again, who knew what the limits of the charm's protection was, or what kind of magic this was. He barely comprehended its existence to begin with; who knew what sort of intricacies and subtleties there were...?

"Blaine." The voice made him whirl around; his father was standing in the doorway and oh God did this whole thing feel familiar. Blaine tried to speak, to ask for help (and he knew how desperate he was if he was going to ask his father — if indeed this even was his father — for help), but he couldn't open his jaw. He couldn't make a single move; it was as though he was acting out a scene on television, one that was already recorded. He had to play his part, no matter what he himself wanted.

"Daddy?" The word came unbidden; it was rather higher than his voice was these days, more like what it was when he was a little kid, if the old home movies were any indication. Suddenly, Blaine was filled with a grim conviction; he now knew what his father was about to say.

"Your mother is gone." Yes, that was it. He suddenly remembered every detail: his position on the floor, the exact composition of the toys around him (Legos next to his right foot, teddy bear leaning against his left leg, the Garfield collection sitting open in front of him), the shudder of the trees creaking in the wind outside... It was precisely what he was experiencing now, down to the smallest detail.

Then his father continued: "And it's your fault." Wait... His father didn't say that. He may've been lukewarm towards him and his sexuality, but he never would've said anything like that. "You do realize that, don't you, Blaine? If you'd been a better person, we'd still have a marriage." The older man glared. "Shame on you." Then he turned and walked away, closing the bedroom door behind him.

Blaine wanted to scream, cry, chase after his daddy... But he did none of those things.

Strangely enough, that was the way he felt during the actual events as well, even without the condemnation.

Blink.

He was lying in a hospital bed; his entire body ached. He hurt too much to even move more than his eyes.

His parents were nowhere to be seen. Cooper was sitting in a chair against the wall across from the foot of his bed; he was on the phone with his agent, saying something about "the script sucks, but it's exposure, right?" He didn't even look in Blaine's direction.

He moaned a little, trying to move first his hand, then his fingers. But the pain, as agonizing as it was when he first felt it, kept him from doing more than shaking his hand.

Finally Cooper noticed. He looked up at Blaine in annoyance. "Can you keep it down? Some of us are trying to make a career here. Christ!" He went back to the phone without a second glance.

Again, it was a discordant note; Cooper really hadn't said anything of the sort. Blaine found himself actually trying to remember the truth, but the period was so muddled by pain and painkillers that it was hard to sort out what was real. But even Cooper wouldn't have been so selfish, so dismissive...

But hadn't he been telling Dave that he was?

Blink.

He was in the parking lot of Scandals. The air was crisp with evening coolness; behind him was muffled music and drunken laughter. There was a strange weight on his shoulder. He turned his head slightly and saw that the weight...

Was him.

Blaine wanted to scream, but he couldn't. All he could do was slowly drag... himself... across the lot. As they passed a car, Blaine saw his reflection in the window... Only it was Kurt's face illuminated by the harsh florescent lighting above.

The dread in his gut blossomed into full-fledged panic. How would this scenario twist itself? He tried to remember exactly what had happened that night in reality, but the memories were still hazy, befogged by alcohol.

"... I only had one beer..." other-Blaine muttered woozily, as if backing up his thoughts.

"Sure, you did," he/Kurt said with gentle sarcasm, his lips moving of their own accord. Blaine always had been a little bit of a lightweight when it came to alcohol, and now that he thought about it, he couldn't exactly remember how many beers he'd had that night. He could only remember one, but seeing the sloppy young man on his shoulder, smelling his breath (and god, was this hallucination — or whatever it was — giving him smells now?)... He was starting to wonder.

"Hey... Kiss me."

"Oh, no..." Experiencing this made him agree with Kurt. Who'd want to make out with him in this state? (Though who knew just how much of it was the truth, seeing as how his other "visions", or whatever they were, had changes made to them. Still, this somehow felt like "the truth" in a way Blaine couldn't quite grasp.) It was like he said when they next talked at school — their first time shouldn't be like this...

"Kiss me..."

"No."

"C'mon..."

"No no no no no no..."

Blaine couldn't remember being so... persistent. Was he really that persistent? No wonder Kurt had been so upset if he'd been such a pill. Why didn't Kurt tell him he was this bad?

"Come on... Ride in the back. Come on... Lay down..."

By now, Blaine was wondering what the point of this was. Except for the irritating doggedness, there was nothing here that was any sort of revelation or attack on him. So why was he being put through this sideshow...?

Then other-Blaine grabbed him/Kurt and pulled him into the car.

Blaine wanted to explode into an expletive, but all Kurt said was "Whoa, wait!"

Now other-Blaine was grabbing him/Kurt, holding him down, and a rush of adrenaline-fueled terror blasted through him. Whether it was Kurt's or his own, he couldn't tell.

"Come— come on! Hey, Kurt, let's just do it! I... I want you!"

"No!" Other-Blaine was chasing him and grabbing him and pulling him and Blaine just wanted to get away but other-Blaine was seemingly everywhere and he wasn't stopping...

"I want you so much..."

"No, Blaine! No!" Other-Blaine was still trying to grab onto him/Kurt and his hands were cold and roaming and he could feel Kurt's fear and...

"I was just trying to be spontaneous and fun!"

He threw up in a corner, the chunky remains of a long-digested lunch splashing against the peeling wallpaper. It was only after his stomach had emptied itself, his forehead resting against the cool wall, that he consciously realized that he was back in the house, back in control of himself. Or as much control as he usually had, anyway.

He could feel what Kurt was feeling, and... Oh, God, had he really made Kurt feel like that? He thought it was just a matter of upsetting his boyfriend with a few irresponsible, drunken overtures, of an inappropriate place and time, but... Had he actually assaulted Kurt? Even if he technically hadn't, had he made Kurt fear that it was a possibility? Did he actually do that to his own boyfriend?

He felt like throwing up again. As it was, his body was wracked with dry heaves, the acidity of bile still clinging to his tongue.

"Spontaneous and fun"... He didn't know where the words had come from — if he was reminded of them or if they were shouted in his ear. It didn't matter.

In that vision-cum-torture, he was someone else. For the first time, he was honestly able to look at himself the way someone else did and oh god was that... Was that really him? He wanted to scream that it was impossible, that it couldn't have happened that way, that Kurt would've told him, would've broken up with him...

All the rationalizations rang false. He'd known that those extra jabs from his illusory father and brother were lies because they clashed with his own memories. That... none of that... clashed with anything he remembered at all, no matter how drunk he'd been at the time. Before, he only vaguely remembered what he'd said, what he'd did — that only made sense, since he wouldn't have done any of it in the first place if he'd been sober. But now, having seen — no, experienced — what had happened...

God, Kurt, no wonder you want to leave me...

Blaine shook his head, staggering as he rose to his feet. There wasn't any time for self-recriminations now. He had to find out what happened to Dave. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he wondered if he was being so noble to somehow prove that he wasn't that guy, prove that he couldn't have done anything horrible to his own boyfriend because look, he was risking his life for someone he didn't like...

But at the same time, he knew that motivations were irrelevant at the moment. There were things that he had to do, and if the motivations were selfish... Well, didn't the world run smoothly because of self-interest?

Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Blaine considered. The magician (because no one else could've been responsible for those visions/nightmares/whatever) had let him go, let him out of the mental trap, so obviously he wanted to be found. It also possibly provided an explanation for Dave's disappearance — maybe the two were connected. Find the magician, find Dave. But without Tina, doing that — never mind fighting him — would be a losing proposition at best. So, getting to Tina had to be the first priority.

That, of course, left the basic question from before: upstairs or downstairs? As Blaine had told Dave right before he... vanished, he was leery about trusting the stairs in an abandoned house; at least the basement steps gave you less time to fall. So basement it was.

He gingerly made his way towards the back of the house through the kitchen. His flashlight beam played on yellowed tile and shattered wood. A loose windowpane rattled in the nighttime wind. The air was heavy with dust, and smelled dead. Blaine shuddered, though not from cold.

Finally his beam found a door. Blaine opened it; it was just a pantry. Grumbling under his breath, he turned towards a second door. This time, he found a set of steps leading down. They were illuminated by a crackling fire burning in a large metal drum that was barely in view from his angle.

"Tina?" he called out. There was no reply. He carefully set a foot down onto the first step; it creaked, but held. As he descended, more of the basement was coming into view. He could now see that the drum was in the middle of a large pentagram drawn in chalk on the concrete floor, surrounded by an intricate ring of chalk runes. Small objects — coins, polished stones, feathers, and the like — were interspersed between the runes, gleaming in the shimmering firelight.

Blaine reached the bottom of the stairs; apart from the spaces reached by the fire and his flashlight, the basement was enshrouded in gloom, all the more nerve-wracking for their seeming impenetrability. A shuffling sound seemed to emanate from them... Perhaps the sound of breathing too? Or was that just him? Or his imagination? "Tina?" he repeated, his voice breaking in the middle of the word. A low chuckle came out of the darkness behind the flaming barrel; that definitely was not his imagination.

"Tina's not here right now," her voice said. "But I am." With those words, the voice altered. It was male, accented in a way Blaine couldn't quite place — definitely not Tina.

"You..." Blaine rasped.

"Yes, me," the voice said mockingly. "How'd you like the show I put on for you? It feels different when you're the one suffering, doesn't it?"

"Why...?"

The voice turned almost petulant. "This is the one part I hadn't thought of. Revenge isn't satisfying if your victim doesn't even know what's going on." A sigh emanated from the shadows. "Don't worry, though, I'll make sure you know what you're dying for."

"M-me?" Blaine felt his face go cold. "But what about Dave...?"

"You don't get it!" the voice screeched, so filled with rage that Blaine staggered at the sheer force of it. "It's not supposed to be about him! It's about you! It's always been about you!"

Even as Blaine's heart pounded, he recognized the irony in someone speaking those words to him. "I... I don't even know who you are!"

"Of course you don't! No one does! But that's all about to change. Everything will be the way it's supposed to be."

With that, a figure emerged into the light. Blaine gaped; he was just a kid... No, he was about Blaine's age, give or take. He had dark brown skin and short cropped black hair, wearing a plain white t-shirt and jeans. But two things about this boy immediately jumped out: first, he was... faded. His entire body was transparent, as though he were only a movie being projected into otherwise empty space. The second was his eyes: wide, brown, and gleaming with a manic combination of intensity and rage that even Blaine's layman mind immediately recognized as madness.

"My name," the boy said with a touch of imperious pride, "is Rajeesh Kapoor. And I want my life back."

AN: Wow. I've been waiting to write those words since chapter one. Kind of amazing I finally got there.

And yes, it's a little meta (Google his first name and Glee if you want background). But all will be explained in due course...