Fic: Love Was Meant For Beauty Queens, Chapter 2
Read: Chapter 1
Chapter 2
The weird thing about being friends with Rachel was that Finn actually had to think.
Rachel spoke a whole other language:
‘I can’t help it if I’m a little pendantic, Finn.’
‘There’s something so visceral and emotive that touches my very soul when Barbara sings.’
‘My desire to succeed is both innate and perennial and if that makes me a freak to my fellow McKinley peers, well, I’m leaving this town in a few months and one day it will be my name in lights.’
But it wasn’t just that. She spoke 90% of the time and Finn would mostly listen. It was never just a short talk, she always gave speeches, and Finn once counted that Rachel could go for a whole three minutes just saying stuff without ever taking a breath. But they had like actual conversations because every time Rachel finished one of her many speeches she would always turn to him and ask, ‘So what do you think?’
The truth was there was a lot of stuff that Finn had never really thought about. He knew his football scholarship and four years of college were waiting for him in slightly more than a summer away but beyond that Finn had never seriously thought about his future. Sure Quinn had talked about marriage and buying the perfect house like one day far, far, far in the future and Finn would nod because it was kind of expected but they were Quinn’s plans. Plus his day to day life in high school had never required much thought. Quinn had pretty much planned out their entire dating history and outside of that Finn only ever did whatever Puck and the rest of the football team were doing.
Each week Rachel had taken to asking him some question which had Finn’s brain spinning in triangles and circles. He’d go home and stare at the cowboys on his wall, his body stretched full across the mattress so that his feet hung over the end of his bed, with his mind racing. He had taken a break from his Call of Duty marathon because he wasn’t even in the mood to like shoot stuff. His mind was full of the sound of Rachel’s voice, the way she pitched questions and words at him like a song he couldn’t get out of his head.
Sitting in the auditorium with his legs dangling over the edge of the stage, Finn pondered Rachel’s current question.
‘What do you want to do with the rest of your life?’ she had asked him.
They spent Tuesday afternoons and Wednesday mornings in the auditorium when Rachel had a couple of frees and Finn skipped class (they weren’t important classes and besides Finn barely made it to Wednesday morning Bio in the first place). No one ever went to the auditorium. It was just this big empty space filled with seats and seats.
Rachel was sitting cross-legged at the center of the stage. There were dusty cardboard trees from when the drama club had tried to stage a production of Our Town during junior year. The club had sold like twelve tickets, all to the six pairs of parents whose children were involved in the club. By the end of junior year, Principal Figgins had cut the drama club due to ‘budget constraints’ like whatever that meant.
The stage lights were on and Finn thought the way the lights made Rachel shine and everything around her was darker, shaded, less bright just seemed to fit. Rachel Berry was born a star; she was just waiting for her moment.
‘I dunno,’ he answered slowly, his legs kicking the air, ‘I’m just the quarterback. I’m not like you, Rach. And I don’t have a - what did you call it? - um, er, a vocation, yeah. So I pretty much have like no clue.’
‘You’re so much more than just the quarterback, Finn,’ she scolded. ‘You need to stop underestimating yourself. And not everyone is born with a vocation like me. It just means you have more options to choose from. We just need to figure out who you are and what you’re good at.’
He twisted round to glance at Rachel, surprised but also a little stoked at the steel in her voice. Rachel was defending him like from himself. Her mouth was gathered into a scowl and she had whipped out her notebook and was scribbling furiously in it with her pink pen. A number of seconds later, she held up her notebook.
‘This is a list of things of your attributes, Finn Hudson,’ she told him, gesturing to the paper in her hand. ‘It isn’t a complete list because I’ve only spent less than a minute compiling it but you can see that quarterback is only one of the many things on the list. I started with the obvious like male, son, quarterback, student, friend, employee at Sheet N Things and the local supermarket, but soon realized that adjectives were much better descriptors of you. So I’ve added tall, athletic, kind, considerate, chivalrous, funny, resourceful, reliable, empathetic, smart…’
‘Wait, you added smart?’ he gaped at her, because Finn had been called a lot of things but he had never been called smart.
In elementary school the teachers had tried to be positive and encouraging - ‘You’ll get it soon. Keep up the hard work.’ - but by middle school and finally high school, Finn was used to that low tone of resignation as the teachers sighed, ‘Never mind.’
‘You may not be the most erudite of persons and you may not comfortably conform to society’s insistence in measuring our value in terms of academic intelligence - I mean, look at the lack of appreciation for the arts in this school although that is a debate for another time. And okay, maybe you do fit into the mold of All American jock given your athletic prowess but what I’m trying to say is: You Are Not Dumb,’ she told him, crossing her arms and glaring at him as if daring him to disagree. ‘And you also happen to be extremely people smart, Finn.’
‘Okay, so I’m not dumb and I’m people smart,’ he said, running a hand through his hair.
Finn hadn’t really understood half the words Rachel had just said but he had understood her meaning.
She actually saw beyond the red and white letterman jacket that he wore like football padding, beyond the number of yards he threw the ball, to get to the freakishly tall, awkward (though he would never admit it to anyone but her) boy inside. And she actually liked what she saw.
Rachel Berry was unbelievable and totally, completely amazing. And Finn kind of wondered how he was only getting this now (god, he was so slow, but not dumb according to Rachel).
Sometimes when Finn was with Quinn, he felt like they were still five years and he was in the playground near the cubbyhole by the trees with Puck throwing yellow and brown leaves over their heads screaming and laughing, ‘I nounce you man and wife. Man and wife! You have to kiss her now, Finny. Finny and Quinny K-I-S-S-I-N-G!’
He’d jump Puck soon after and they would roll around in the grass throwing punches and that was fun. But then Quinn would start yelling that they’d ruined everything and there was mud on her white ruffled dress and Finn and Puck would have to stand in separate corners for like forever - one whole minute - because Quinn had started crying.
It was Quinn crying that had started everything in the first place. Finn had trod on the arm of one of Quinn’s dolls, not on purpose but because his feet had been kind of big (still were) and he had this problem with knocking into things. Quinn’s eyes had bugged out and her face got all scrunched up and really really red and then she was crying. He had kind of stood there for a bit and as the teachers started racing towards them, he had started promising her anything just so she would stop crying because even at five years of age, Finn knew that real men never made girls cry and Finn was the only man in the Hudson household.
So she made him do stuff like stand by the cubbyhole and get married or sit next to her in class while her little hands shaped the yellow play-doh into human form.
‘This is me and this is you,’ Quinn had told him. ‘I’ve made you just how I like.’
Sometimes when he was with Quinn, he felt like he had grown up to be a yellow play-doh Finn.
Being with Rachel was different. Maybe because they had never hung out when they were kids. Maybe because Rachel had never really fitted in Lima, Ohio and now that Finn was eighteen, older, he knew that he didn’t really want to fit into this too small town either.
He swiveled his body around so that his legs were now strewn across the polished wood of the stage floor and he had a proper view of Rachel. His eyes were fixed on her, trying to soak in the way the light shone over her. She was chewing on her bottom lip like she was kind of anxious that she had said too much but her eyes were bright, so bright and Finn knew Rachel had meant every single word she had just said to him.
She flashed him a shy mega-watt smile, her teeth white and gleaming as she spoke, ‘Anyway, this is just the tip of the iceberg, the beginning of the list. Over time, we are just going to continue to add more. And I know there’s going to be tons more to add because as we continue to get better acquainted, I realize that you have hidden depths, Finn.’
She bent her head down again, jotting further words on the list.
‘So what else are you adding to the list?’ Finn asked, crawling over to the center stage so he could peek over Rachel’s shoulder.
The page of the notebook had FINN HUDSON in bubble print with a big pink star at the end of his name. It was kind of girly but very Rachel and Finn thought he might actually like the way Rachel’s handwriting made the letters of his name curve. The rest of the list was filled with words written in neat script. She had added ‘very talented’, ‘great singer’ and ‘natural leader’ to her list.
As his eyes scanned down the paper, he noticed a long blot of pink near the top of the list. It was a couple of words - maybe four, no, five words - with three lines crossed over them. He leaned over and his chest pressed into Rachel’s back as his hand brushed the side of her thigh. He tried to ignore the way her breath hitched at the sudden closeness and focus instead on making out the letters.
Finn could barely breathe as the letters became words and he turned to face Rachel, forgetting that their bodies were so close now that when his head rotated his lips nearly brushed her right cheek.
‘Did you write that I am ‘incredibly handsome’ and ‘fantastic in bed’?’ he asked.
‘No!’ Rachel squeaked, shaking her head.
His lips grazed her skin as she moved her head from left to right and the contact must have startled her because she jumped a little even as Finn fought back a groan.
‘No,’ Rachel repeated, pressing her palms against Finn’s chest as if to push him away. ‘No, I didn’t write that you are ‘incredibly handsome’ and ‘fantastic in bed’ because that would be inappropriate. Not inappropriate in the sense that they aren’t apt delineations but inappropriate in the sense that you have a girlf…’
Finn didn’t let Rachel finish her sentence. He grabbed her two hands which were against his chest, pulling them so they were wrapped around his neck. Rachel was so close to him that she was actually sitting on his lap. He kissed her then, swallowing her words until there was nothing left but the reality of Rachel and the taste of her on his tongue.
Their bodies fell to the floor and he wrapped one arm around Rachel’s shoulders as he tried to soften the impact of her back hitting the wooden stage. Her legs were tangled with his and he wasn’t even sure anymore where Finn Hudson began and Rachel Berry ended and yet she still wasn’t close enough.
The overhead stage lights were hot and intense but they couldn’t compete with the slow burn building in Finn every time Rachel’s lips skimmed across his neck.
Was he sweating?
He felt hot, like a fever. Or maybe like after winning a game and Coach Beiste snuck the team into the Cheerios sauna - because Coach had like no fear and Sue Sylvester be damned - and there was just all that heat and steam and Finn felt kind of droopy but also really good.
Her hands tugged at the ends of his shirt and Finn helped her along, hauling his shirt over his head. It was almost a relief to feel the air on his skin and he blindly tossed his shirt away as he swooped in for another kiss.
Rachel was melting in his arms or maybe Finn was the one melting when his shirt hit one of the cardboard trees and the prop wobbled and crashed to the floor.
The bang that the tree made when it struck the floor was loud. The noise echoed and it was like the air was shaking all around them from the sound.
Rachel swiftly shoved him away and there was a look on her face and he didn’t want to call it horror. She straightened her top, her skirt, her hair and gathered her arms around her body and didn’t quite look at him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she stumbled. ‘We shouldn’t…we didn’t…we can’t…’
He was looking at her and Finn knew his face was kind of blank because it was like he couldn’t move. Like his muscles weren’t working and his brain wasn’t working and all he could think was, Why did we stop?
‘You have Quinn!’ she finally exclaimed and it sounded like an accusation.
It probably was an accusation because he did have Quinn. And Quinn was his girlfriend so this, whatever this was with Rachel, was cheating. And cheating was wrong, wasn’t it? And you were meant to feel bad whenever you did something wrong. Finn knew that. Only nothing about kissing Rachel, touching Rachel, being with Rachel felt bad or wrong.
Rachel was standing up and she was walking out of the auditorium with her back so straight there was like a rod through it.
She added a firm passing shot, ‘I need to leave. I have to get to my second period class. We should stop meeting.’
Finn was sitting bare-chested and center stage, with a cardboard tree and his shirt to his right. Rachel’s notebook was digging into his calf and he could see the sparkly pink ink and all those words that she said were Finn.
The stage lights were scalding above him. He didn’t feel hot anymore. He shivered instead, goose pimples forming up his arms.
It was cold.
And Finn felt like he might have just lost something important and he just needed to think.
*
He skipped Christ Crusaders in the afternoon and Quinn didn’t get mad. She had been extra happy lately, which was good and all. It probably helped that he had promised to take her to Chez Bon again as a post-graduation celebration for the two of them. You actually had to book to eat at that place so Finn had called and made reservations for Saturday night, two weeks from now.
It was hard to believe that high school would be over in two weeks.
Finn headed to the 7-Eleven and paid Tommy Hamilton to snag him a couple of six-packs. Tommy had been on the football team with Finn and had graduated from McKinley one year ago (he had been left back twice), never quite managing to leave Lima in the end. Tommy was working at Walmart now and had recently been promoted to the check out after working as a stock boy since dropping out after the third month in college.
‘Dude, we were epic in high school,’ Tommy recollected. ‘You, me, Puckerman, good ol’ Puck, Adams and Pearson, we used to rule the school. We were fuckin’ top shit. Those were the days.’
Finn nodded because it seemed to be the thing to do but Tommy barely even noticed his gesture. Finn noted the glazed faraway look in Tommy’s eyes and how his face seemed to brighten when he talked about his time in school. It made Finn wonder if he was going to end up like Tommy Hamilton in a few years time.
Man, he really hoped not. Because high school had kind of sucked and being the quarterback, the Prom King and dating the hottest girl in school didn’t really feel much like anything right now. Finn could count on one hand the moments in high school that had made him truly happy: making it through the playoffs and then becoming state champions under Coach Beiste, spending Tuesday afternoons and Wednesday mornings in the auditorium with Rachel, and glee club.
Tommy clapped Finn on the back and Finn realized the dude was almost done talking.
‘Two weeks left of high school, Hudson,’ Tommy said as he waved goodbye. ‘Better make the most of it while you can.’
Finn popped the tab on one of the beers and skulled half a can. The malt brown liquid went easy down his throat. It was warm out and Finn thought about how summer was almost here and high school was almost over and the rest of his life was waiting and he didn’t have freaking clue what he wanted to do with his life. Okay, scratch that, Finn did know that he didn’t want to end up like Tommy Hamilton.
He wiped the sweat which was starting to bead on his forehead with the back of his arm and took another sip of his beer.
Rachel’s notebook with the list was in the glove seat compartment in his car. She had told him they should stop meeting and maybe she was right. Only whenever Finn reread the list (and he had read it like sixty times since the morning) his sole thought was that he didn’t want to stop meeting Rachel.
His cell rang, interrupting his thoughts, and Finn picked up.
‘Hello?’
‘’Sup, dude?’ Puck said over the line. ‘I’m missing my boy and you gotta come to school and check out the epic prank we’ve just pulled. Check you in five.’
Puck hung up before Finn could tell him that he really wasn’t in the mood.
He drove to McKinley High anyway because Puck was expecting him and it didn’t even really occur to Finn not to go.
When Finn pulled up at the entrance of the school, there were a couple of trucks and one SUV parked to the side and one station wagon burning wheelies across the lot. The air smelt of rubber and smoke. Near the steps someone had emptied out a metal trashcan and had used it to light a small bonfire. There were empty beer cans and bottles littered across the ground and Finn grabbed the six-packs he had scored from Tommy Hamilton, one of them now a five-pack, and jogged over to where Puck was chatting with some of the other guys on the football team.
There was a lot of nodding and high fiving when Finn reached the group. Puck held his right hand out in a tight fist and he and Finn did their usual fist pump. Finn snagged a can for himself before handing the beer over to Fitz to distribute round the group. He tapped the lid of his beer can with his index finger before pulling the tab. The beer frizzed and foamed and Finn had to lick the side of his hand to get at some of the spilt liquid.
The beer was barely cool on Finn’s tongue, closer to lukewarm in fact. The night was really warm out and most of guys in the team were down to their wifebeaters. A couple had their shirts off, sweat dripping down, as they whooped and raced in circles across the entrance of McKinley High.
‘Bout time you got here, Finnessa,’ Puck jeered. ‘Thought you were going to go all pansy assed on me and wuss out.’
Finn rolled his eyes, took a couple of gulps of his beer before putting his can down and tackling Puck. They tussled for a bit and Finn managed to get a couple of good punches and jabs in before they broke apart and grinned at one another.
‘Whatever, dude,’ Finn finally replied, grabbing hold of his beer again.
A light wind had picked up although it was only really shifting the warm air from one spot to another. The wind was also making the smoke from the bonfire drift over to the group and Finn coughed a little as he inhaled the air.
The rest of the team was shooting the breeze, and nothing important was ever said and the conversation washed over Finn. He had only arrived like a minute or so ago and already Finn wanted to leave. The truth was Finn didn’t even really know why he was here, except that Puck was his bro and this was where he was supposed to be. Puck was rolling a little on the balls of his feet as the guys talked shit and Finn knew that Puck only ever did that when he was edging for something.
There was a familiar gleam in his eyes that Finn had learnt to recognize back when they were eleven and Puck’s mega douche of a dad had walked out and Mrs Puckerman was sitting red eyed on their couch while his mom filled out a bunch of forms. Finn and Puck were supposed to stick to the yard out front and keep an eye out on Sarah, Puck’s younger sister.
‘This is bullshit,’ Puck had said. ‘I’m not staying here. I can’t.’
Puck had taken off and Finn had just kind of followed him, his hand dragging Sarah along. After a minute or two because Puck had been too fast and Sarah had been too slow, Finn had hoisted the little girl on his back and chased after his bro. Sarah had kept on screaming, ‘Giddy Up Horsey!’ in this really high pitched voice and it had been totally annoying because it was right in Finn’s ear. He hadn’t told her to shut up though because she had seemed kind of happy and a screaming happy Sarah was way better than a screaming crying Sarah.
The local gas station was four blocks away from Finn’s house and he had found Puck outside with the owner, Mr Laxman, grabbing onto to Puck’s wrist and pulling candy out of his pockets.
‘I’ve had enough of you hooligans. You all start out young and grow up terrorizing the neighborhood. Well, I won’t stand for it. I’m calling the police,’ Mr Laxman had yelled.
The next thing Finn had known, he was standing in between Mr Laxman and Puck and Sarah was still on his back throwing her little fists around (which had kind of hurt) and crying, ‘Stop picking on Noah, you big fat meanie!’
Finn had tried to explain that Puck wasn’t really a thief and that Finn had a piggybank at home with a bunch of quarters in it and Mr Laxman could totally have them all if he wanted but please, please don’t call the cops. Puck had just stood there, his feet kicking the concrete and his face all scrunched up like he had known he had messed up but he was the Puckerone so he wasn’t going to apologize or nothing.
Later at home, after Mr Laxman had decided to call their moms instead of the cops and there had been a whole lot of yelling and Noah, Sarah and Mrs Puckerman had left, Finn’s mom had sat him down on his bed and explained everything to him.
‘Noah, Sarah and Mrs Puckerman are going through a really hard time right now, sweetie,’ his mom had said. ‘And Noah may do some stuff, which is bad and wrong and it is your responsibility to watch out for him. Responsibility means that Noah is your friend and sometimes you may have to remind him about impulse control, that he shouldn’t do every single crazy thing that might enter his mind.’
Finn had seen Puck at school the next day and he had been mostly quiet only nodding and saying, ‘Dude.’
However during lunch Puck had punched Dave Karofsky when the dude had tried to jump Finn from behind for calling him ‘Pubes’ in class that morning.
And at eleven years of age, Finn had understood what his mom had been trying to say: Noah Puckerman was his best friend and his bro and no matter what they would always have each other’s backs.
So when Finn saw that familiar gleam in Puck’s eyes, his stomach kind of dropped. Seven years later and Finn had learnt that while that gleam sometimes meant that Puck had done something totally badass and cool, most of the time it just meant plain old trouble.
‘Dude, what did you do?’ Finn asked, trying to sound casual.
‘Check it out, man,’ Puck replied, nudging Finn in the chest as his head gestured to the flagpole where every morning at 8am on the dot, Principal Figgins hoisted the flag of the God Bless the United States of America up the pole.
Finn looked up and saw it. A wheelchair dangled from the flagpole. The ropes on the pole had somehow been threaded through the spokes of one of the wheels and with the light wind blowing the wheelchair clattered and banged against the pole.
‘What the fuck did you do?’ Finn whispered and there was horror in his voice but Puck mistook it for awe.
‘It’s epic, yeah,’ Puck gloated. ‘It’s like our fucking senior class statement that William McKinley High School is like disabled. It’ll be legacy. We got it roped up so tight that you can’t even yank it down, like you’d need a forklift or something to get it off the pole. Figgins is going to freak.’
‘What about the kid who like owns the chair?’
‘That loser? He’s somewhere around, I guess. Azimo and Fitz jumped him. Look, it’s not like anyone cares.’
‘I care,’ Finn said and his voice was kind of quiet but there was a hint of steel in it too that Puck recognized.
Finn's eyes searched the grounds trying to see if he could find the brown-haired kid with glasses.
‘Dude, it’s no big deal. You’re failing to acknowledge the epicness of this, Finnessa,’ Puck told him, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
Finn shrugged Puck off and shoved away when he spotted two legs by the bonfire. The fire was still going strong and bits of spark and ember flew out from the trash can hitting the grass and the legs. Finn could see now the rest of Artie, his arms pushing up and then collapsing as he tried to drag the deadweight of his legs away from the fire.
‘I don’t understand why you’re having a cow over some loser you don’t even know,’ Puck called as Finn headed over to the boy.
‘His name is Artie.’
‘Whatever, it’s not like he’s on the football team on anything,’ Puck said as he trailed after Finn.
‘Well, he could have been once,’ Finn said as he spun around and glared at Puck.
‘Shit, man,’ Puck cursed, ‘I forgot about Sean. I forgot that you like hero worshipped Fretthold. But this ain’t personal. It’s not like you’re friends with this Artie kid or anything.’
‘No, you don’t get it, man. This is all bullshit.’ Finn told Puck, gesturing to the team drinking beer and the car doing wheelies. ‘And if hanging Artie’s wheelchair on the flagpole is going to be our fucking legacy then we’re all pretty much set to be dumbass pathetic losers as soon as high school is over.’
Finn stooped over and it kind of pained when Artie flinched like he was expecting Finn to punch him or something. Finn noticed that there was a gash across Artie’s forehead and his mouth looked busted up.
‘Get on my back,’ Finn instructed Artie.
Artie didn’t move but just lay there gawking at Finn. His glasses were crooked and a moment later Artie did move but only to straighten his glasses.
‘Look, I’m not going to hurt you,’ Finn said and threw Artie a smile that he hoped was reassuring. ‘But your chair is kinda on the flagpole. And while I’m freakishly tall and all that, I’m still not tall enough to get your chair down. So I figure you’ll need a ride if you wanna get out of here. And I think I can handle your weight on my back, if you want?’
Artie didn’t say no so Finn kind of took it as a yes and he crouched down close enough so Artie could lift himself onto his back.
Finn knew Puck was watching (all he had been doing for the last minutes or so was watching) and the rest of the team started to shout and cat-call but Finn ignored all of that. He got to his car and it was a little difficult opening the passenger door when you had an 18 year old boy on your back but somehow Finn managed. He carefully placed Artie into the car and Finn was reversing out of the lot and away from the school before he stopped to think and ask, ‘Uh, where’s your home, dude?’
The ride back to Artie’s house was quiet. Finn was glad because he didn’t really want to speak.
But when he opened the passenger door and went to help Artie out of the car, Artie asked him, ‘Why did you do it?’
‘Look, I, uh, wasn’t involved in the flagpole thing,’ Finn lamely defended. He didn’t really want to think about all the other stuff he had been involved in.
‘No, not that,’ Artie said. ‘Why did you help me?’
Finn struggled for an answer. There was no one reason and he wasn’t really sure he wanted to list every single messed up thought in his head right now to Artie. Finally, Finn settled on, ‘We were in glee club together, once.’
It didn’t really answer Artie’s question but he let it go and Finn managed to help Artie safely back into his house.
As Finn was walking down Artie’s driveway, it came to him that there was really only one place he wanted to be. That there was really only one person he wanted to talk to right now. So Finn jumped in his car and drove.
Chapter 2
The weird thing about being friends with Rachel was that Finn actually had to think.
Rachel spoke a whole other language:
‘I can’t help it if I’m a little pendantic, Finn.’
‘There’s something so visceral and emotive that touches my very soul when Barbara sings.’
‘My desire to succeed is both innate and perennial and if that makes me a freak to my fellow McKinley peers, well, I’m leaving this town in a few months and one day it will be my name in lights.’
But it wasn’t just that. She spoke 90% of the time and Finn would mostly listen. It was never just a short talk, she always gave speeches, and Finn once counted that Rachel could go for a whole three minutes just saying stuff without ever taking a breath. But they had like actual conversations because every time Rachel finished one of her many speeches she would always turn to him and ask, ‘So what do you think?’
The truth was there was a lot of stuff that Finn had never really thought about. He knew his football scholarship and four years of college were waiting for him in slightly more than a summer away but beyond that Finn had never seriously thought about his future. Sure Quinn had talked about marriage and buying the perfect house like one day far, far, far in the future and Finn would nod because it was kind of expected but they were Quinn’s plans. Plus his day to day life in high school had never required much thought. Quinn had pretty much planned out their entire dating history and outside of that Finn only ever did whatever Puck and the rest of the football team were doing.
Each week Rachel had taken to asking him some question which had Finn’s brain spinning in triangles and circles. He’d go home and stare at the cowboys on his wall, his body stretched full across the mattress so that his feet hung over the end of his bed, with his mind racing. He had taken a break from his Call of Duty marathon because he wasn’t even in the mood to like shoot stuff. His mind was full of the sound of Rachel’s voice, the way she pitched questions and words at him like a song he couldn’t get out of his head.
Sitting in the auditorium with his legs dangling over the edge of the stage, Finn pondered Rachel’s current question.
‘What do you want to do with the rest of your life?’ she had asked him.
They spent Tuesday afternoons and Wednesday mornings in the auditorium when Rachel had a couple of frees and Finn skipped class (they weren’t important classes and besides Finn barely made it to Wednesday morning Bio in the first place). No one ever went to the auditorium. It was just this big empty space filled with seats and seats.
Rachel was sitting cross-legged at the center of the stage. There were dusty cardboard trees from when the drama club had tried to stage a production of Our Town during junior year. The club had sold like twelve tickets, all to the six pairs of parents whose children were involved in the club. By the end of junior year, Principal Figgins had cut the drama club due to ‘budget constraints’ like whatever that meant.
The stage lights were on and Finn thought the way the lights made Rachel shine and everything around her was darker, shaded, less bright just seemed to fit. Rachel Berry was born a star; she was just waiting for her moment.
‘I dunno,’ he answered slowly, his legs kicking the air, ‘I’m just the quarterback. I’m not like you, Rach. And I don’t have a - what did you call it? - um, er, a vocation, yeah. So I pretty much have like no clue.’
‘You’re so much more than just the quarterback, Finn,’ she scolded. ‘You need to stop underestimating yourself. And not everyone is born with a vocation like me. It just means you have more options to choose from. We just need to figure out who you are and what you’re good at.’
He twisted round to glance at Rachel, surprised but also a little stoked at the steel in her voice. Rachel was defending him like from himself. Her mouth was gathered into a scowl and she had whipped out her notebook and was scribbling furiously in it with her pink pen. A number of seconds later, she held up her notebook.
‘This is a list of things of your attributes, Finn Hudson,’ she told him, gesturing to the paper in her hand. ‘It isn’t a complete list because I’ve only spent less than a minute compiling it but you can see that quarterback is only one of the many things on the list. I started with the obvious like male, son, quarterback, student, friend, employee at Sheet N Things and the local supermarket, but soon realized that adjectives were much better descriptors of you. So I’ve added tall, athletic, kind, considerate, chivalrous, funny, resourceful, reliable, empathetic, smart…’
‘Wait, you added smart?’ he gaped at her, because Finn had been called a lot of things but he had never been called smart.
In elementary school the teachers had tried to be positive and encouraging - ‘You’ll get it soon. Keep up the hard work.’ - but by middle school and finally high school, Finn was used to that low tone of resignation as the teachers sighed, ‘Never mind.’
‘You may not be the most erudite of persons and you may not comfortably conform to society’s insistence in measuring our value in terms of academic intelligence - I mean, look at the lack of appreciation for the arts in this school although that is a debate for another time. And okay, maybe you do fit into the mold of All American jock given your athletic prowess but what I’m trying to say is: You Are Not Dumb,’ she told him, crossing her arms and glaring at him as if daring him to disagree. ‘And you also happen to be extremely people smart, Finn.’
‘Okay, so I’m not dumb and I’m people smart,’ he said, running a hand through his hair.
Finn hadn’t really understood half the words Rachel had just said but he had understood her meaning.
She actually saw beyond the red and white letterman jacket that he wore like football padding, beyond the number of yards he threw the ball, to get to the freakishly tall, awkward (though he would never admit it to anyone but her) boy inside. And she actually liked what she saw.
Rachel Berry was unbelievable and totally, completely amazing. And Finn kind of wondered how he was only getting this now (god, he was so slow, but not dumb according to Rachel).
Sometimes when Finn was with Quinn, he felt like they were still five years and he was in the playground near the cubbyhole by the trees with Puck throwing yellow and brown leaves over their heads screaming and laughing, ‘I nounce you man and wife. Man and wife! You have to kiss her now, Finny. Finny and Quinny K-I-S-S-I-N-G!’
He’d jump Puck soon after and they would roll around in the grass throwing punches and that was fun. But then Quinn would start yelling that they’d ruined everything and there was mud on her white ruffled dress and Finn and Puck would have to stand in separate corners for like forever - one whole minute - because Quinn had started crying.
It was Quinn crying that had started everything in the first place. Finn had trod on the arm of one of Quinn’s dolls, not on purpose but because his feet had been kind of big (still were) and he had this problem with knocking into things. Quinn’s eyes had bugged out and her face got all scrunched up and really really red and then she was crying. He had kind of stood there for a bit and as the teachers started racing towards them, he had started promising her anything just so she would stop crying because even at five years of age, Finn knew that real men never made girls cry and Finn was the only man in the Hudson household.
So she made him do stuff like stand by the cubbyhole and get married or sit next to her in class while her little hands shaped the yellow play-doh into human form.
‘This is me and this is you,’ Quinn had told him. ‘I’ve made you just how I like.’
Sometimes when he was with Quinn, he felt like he had grown up to be a yellow play-doh Finn.
Being with Rachel was different. Maybe because they had never hung out when they were kids. Maybe because Rachel had never really fitted in Lima, Ohio and now that Finn was eighteen, older, he knew that he didn’t really want to fit into this too small town either.
He swiveled his body around so that his legs were now strewn across the polished wood of the stage floor and he had a proper view of Rachel. His eyes were fixed on her, trying to soak in the way the light shone over her. She was chewing on her bottom lip like she was kind of anxious that she had said too much but her eyes were bright, so bright and Finn knew Rachel had meant every single word she had just said to him.
She flashed him a shy mega-watt smile, her teeth white and gleaming as she spoke, ‘Anyway, this is just the tip of the iceberg, the beginning of the list. Over time, we are just going to continue to add more. And I know there’s going to be tons more to add because as we continue to get better acquainted, I realize that you have hidden depths, Finn.’
She bent her head down again, jotting further words on the list.
‘So what else are you adding to the list?’ Finn asked, crawling over to the center stage so he could peek over Rachel’s shoulder.
The page of the notebook had FINN HUDSON in bubble print with a big pink star at the end of his name. It was kind of girly but very Rachel and Finn thought he might actually like the way Rachel’s handwriting made the letters of his name curve. The rest of the list was filled with words written in neat script. She had added ‘very talented’, ‘great singer’ and ‘natural leader’ to her list.
As his eyes scanned down the paper, he noticed a long blot of pink near the top of the list. It was a couple of words - maybe four, no, five words - with three lines crossed over them. He leaned over and his chest pressed into Rachel’s back as his hand brushed the side of her thigh. He tried to ignore the way her breath hitched at the sudden closeness and focus instead on making out the letters.
Finn could barely breathe as the letters became words and he turned to face Rachel, forgetting that their bodies were so close now that when his head rotated his lips nearly brushed her right cheek.
‘Did you write that I am ‘incredibly handsome’ and ‘fantastic in bed’?’ he asked.
‘No!’ Rachel squeaked, shaking her head.
His lips grazed her skin as she moved her head from left to right and the contact must have startled her because she jumped a little even as Finn fought back a groan.
‘No,’ Rachel repeated, pressing her palms against Finn’s chest as if to push him away. ‘No, I didn’t write that you are ‘incredibly handsome’ and ‘fantastic in bed’ because that would be inappropriate. Not inappropriate in the sense that they aren’t apt delineations but inappropriate in the sense that you have a girlf…’
Finn didn’t let Rachel finish her sentence. He grabbed her two hands which were against his chest, pulling them so they were wrapped around his neck. Rachel was so close to him that she was actually sitting on his lap. He kissed her then, swallowing her words until there was nothing left but the reality of Rachel and the taste of her on his tongue.
Their bodies fell to the floor and he wrapped one arm around Rachel’s shoulders as he tried to soften the impact of her back hitting the wooden stage. Her legs were tangled with his and he wasn’t even sure anymore where Finn Hudson began and Rachel Berry ended and yet she still wasn’t close enough.
The overhead stage lights were hot and intense but they couldn’t compete with the slow burn building in Finn every time Rachel’s lips skimmed across his neck.
Was he sweating?
He felt hot, like a fever. Or maybe like after winning a game and Coach Beiste snuck the team into the Cheerios sauna - because Coach had like no fear and Sue Sylvester be damned - and there was just all that heat and steam and Finn felt kind of droopy but also really good.
Her hands tugged at the ends of his shirt and Finn helped her along, hauling his shirt over his head. It was almost a relief to feel the air on his skin and he blindly tossed his shirt away as he swooped in for another kiss.
Rachel was melting in his arms or maybe Finn was the one melting when his shirt hit one of the cardboard trees and the prop wobbled and crashed to the floor.
The bang that the tree made when it struck the floor was loud. The noise echoed and it was like the air was shaking all around them from the sound.
Rachel swiftly shoved him away and there was a look on her face and he didn’t want to call it horror. She straightened her top, her skirt, her hair and gathered her arms around her body and didn’t quite look at him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she stumbled. ‘We shouldn’t…we didn’t…we can’t…’
He was looking at her and Finn knew his face was kind of blank because it was like he couldn’t move. Like his muscles weren’t working and his brain wasn’t working and all he could think was, Why did we stop?
‘You have Quinn!’ she finally exclaimed and it sounded like an accusation.
It probably was an accusation because he did have Quinn. And Quinn was his girlfriend so this, whatever this was with Rachel, was cheating. And cheating was wrong, wasn’t it? And you were meant to feel bad whenever you did something wrong. Finn knew that. Only nothing about kissing Rachel, touching Rachel, being with Rachel felt bad or wrong.
Rachel was standing up and she was walking out of the auditorium with her back so straight there was like a rod through it.
She added a firm passing shot, ‘I need to leave. I have to get to my second period class. We should stop meeting.’
Finn was sitting bare-chested and center stage, with a cardboard tree and his shirt to his right. Rachel’s notebook was digging into his calf and he could see the sparkly pink ink and all those words that she said were Finn.
The stage lights were scalding above him. He didn’t feel hot anymore. He shivered instead, goose pimples forming up his arms.
It was cold.
And Finn felt like he might have just lost something important and he just needed to think.
*
He skipped Christ Crusaders in the afternoon and Quinn didn’t get mad. She had been extra happy lately, which was good and all. It probably helped that he had promised to take her to Chez Bon again as a post-graduation celebration for the two of them. You actually had to book to eat at that place so Finn had called and made reservations for Saturday night, two weeks from now.
It was hard to believe that high school would be over in two weeks.
Finn headed to the 7-Eleven and paid Tommy Hamilton to snag him a couple of six-packs. Tommy had been on the football team with Finn and had graduated from McKinley one year ago (he had been left back twice), never quite managing to leave Lima in the end. Tommy was working at Walmart now and had recently been promoted to the check out after working as a stock boy since dropping out after the third month in college.
‘Dude, we were epic in high school,’ Tommy recollected. ‘You, me, Puckerman, good ol’ Puck, Adams and Pearson, we used to rule the school. We were fuckin’ top shit. Those were the days.’
Finn nodded because it seemed to be the thing to do but Tommy barely even noticed his gesture. Finn noted the glazed faraway look in Tommy’s eyes and how his face seemed to brighten when he talked about his time in school. It made Finn wonder if he was going to end up like Tommy Hamilton in a few years time.
Man, he really hoped not. Because high school had kind of sucked and being the quarterback, the Prom King and dating the hottest girl in school didn’t really feel much like anything right now. Finn could count on one hand the moments in high school that had made him truly happy: making it through the playoffs and then becoming state champions under Coach Beiste, spending Tuesday afternoons and Wednesday mornings in the auditorium with Rachel, and glee club.
Tommy clapped Finn on the back and Finn realized the dude was almost done talking.
‘Two weeks left of high school, Hudson,’ Tommy said as he waved goodbye. ‘Better make the most of it while you can.’
Finn popped the tab on one of the beers and skulled half a can. The malt brown liquid went easy down his throat. It was warm out and Finn thought about how summer was almost here and high school was almost over and the rest of his life was waiting and he didn’t have freaking clue what he wanted to do with his life. Okay, scratch that, Finn did know that he didn’t want to end up like Tommy Hamilton.
He wiped the sweat which was starting to bead on his forehead with the back of his arm and took another sip of his beer.
Rachel’s notebook with the list was in the glove seat compartment in his car. She had told him they should stop meeting and maybe she was right. Only whenever Finn reread the list (and he had read it like sixty times since the morning) his sole thought was that he didn’t want to stop meeting Rachel.
His cell rang, interrupting his thoughts, and Finn picked up.
‘Hello?’
‘’Sup, dude?’ Puck said over the line. ‘I’m missing my boy and you gotta come to school and check out the epic prank we’ve just pulled. Check you in five.’
Puck hung up before Finn could tell him that he really wasn’t in the mood.
He drove to McKinley High anyway because Puck was expecting him and it didn’t even really occur to Finn not to go.
When Finn pulled up at the entrance of the school, there were a couple of trucks and one SUV parked to the side and one station wagon burning wheelies across the lot. The air smelt of rubber and smoke. Near the steps someone had emptied out a metal trashcan and had used it to light a small bonfire. There were empty beer cans and bottles littered across the ground and Finn grabbed the six-packs he had scored from Tommy Hamilton, one of them now a five-pack, and jogged over to where Puck was chatting with some of the other guys on the football team.
There was a lot of nodding and high fiving when Finn reached the group. Puck held his right hand out in a tight fist and he and Finn did their usual fist pump. Finn snagged a can for himself before handing the beer over to Fitz to distribute round the group. He tapped the lid of his beer can with his index finger before pulling the tab. The beer frizzed and foamed and Finn had to lick the side of his hand to get at some of the spilt liquid.
The beer was barely cool on Finn’s tongue, closer to lukewarm in fact. The night was really warm out and most of guys in the team were down to their wifebeaters. A couple had their shirts off, sweat dripping down, as they whooped and raced in circles across the entrance of McKinley High.
‘Bout time you got here, Finnessa,’ Puck jeered. ‘Thought you were going to go all pansy assed on me and wuss out.’
Finn rolled his eyes, took a couple of gulps of his beer before putting his can down and tackling Puck. They tussled for a bit and Finn managed to get a couple of good punches and jabs in before they broke apart and grinned at one another.
‘Whatever, dude,’ Finn finally replied, grabbing hold of his beer again.
A light wind had picked up although it was only really shifting the warm air from one spot to another. The wind was also making the smoke from the bonfire drift over to the group and Finn coughed a little as he inhaled the air.
The rest of the team was shooting the breeze, and nothing important was ever said and the conversation washed over Finn. He had only arrived like a minute or so ago and already Finn wanted to leave. The truth was Finn didn’t even really know why he was here, except that Puck was his bro and this was where he was supposed to be. Puck was rolling a little on the balls of his feet as the guys talked shit and Finn knew that Puck only ever did that when he was edging for something.
There was a familiar gleam in his eyes that Finn had learnt to recognize back when they were eleven and Puck’s mega douche of a dad had walked out and Mrs Puckerman was sitting red eyed on their couch while his mom filled out a bunch of forms. Finn and Puck were supposed to stick to the yard out front and keep an eye out on Sarah, Puck’s younger sister.
‘This is bullshit,’ Puck had said. ‘I’m not staying here. I can’t.’
Puck had taken off and Finn had just kind of followed him, his hand dragging Sarah along. After a minute or two because Puck had been too fast and Sarah had been too slow, Finn had hoisted the little girl on his back and chased after his bro. Sarah had kept on screaming, ‘Giddy Up Horsey!’ in this really high pitched voice and it had been totally annoying because it was right in Finn’s ear. He hadn’t told her to shut up though because she had seemed kind of happy and a screaming happy Sarah was way better than a screaming crying Sarah.
The local gas station was four blocks away from Finn’s house and he had found Puck outside with the owner, Mr Laxman, grabbing onto to Puck’s wrist and pulling candy out of his pockets.
‘I’ve had enough of you hooligans. You all start out young and grow up terrorizing the neighborhood. Well, I won’t stand for it. I’m calling the police,’ Mr Laxman had yelled.
The next thing Finn had known, he was standing in between Mr Laxman and Puck and Sarah was still on his back throwing her little fists around (which had kind of hurt) and crying, ‘Stop picking on Noah, you big fat meanie!’
Finn had tried to explain that Puck wasn’t really a thief and that Finn had a piggybank at home with a bunch of quarters in it and Mr Laxman could totally have them all if he wanted but please, please don’t call the cops. Puck had just stood there, his feet kicking the concrete and his face all scrunched up like he had known he had messed up but he was the Puckerone so he wasn’t going to apologize or nothing.
Later at home, after Mr Laxman had decided to call their moms instead of the cops and there had been a whole lot of yelling and Noah, Sarah and Mrs Puckerman had left, Finn’s mom had sat him down on his bed and explained everything to him.
‘Noah, Sarah and Mrs Puckerman are going through a really hard time right now, sweetie,’ his mom had said. ‘And Noah may do some stuff, which is bad and wrong and it is your responsibility to watch out for him. Responsibility means that Noah is your friend and sometimes you may have to remind him about impulse control, that he shouldn’t do every single crazy thing that might enter his mind.’
Finn had seen Puck at school the next day and he had been mostly quiet only nodding and saying, ‘Dude.’
However during lunch Puck had punched Dave Karofsky when the dude had tried to jump Finn from behind for calling him ‘Pubes’ in class that morning.
And at eleven years of age, Finn had understood what his mom had been trying to say: Noah Puckerman was his best friend and his bro and no matter what they would always have each other’s backs.
So when Finn saw that familiar gleam in Puck’s eyes, his stomach kind of dropped. Seven years later and Finn had learnt that while that gleam sometimes meant that Puck had done something totally badass and cool, most of the time it just meant plain old trouble.
‘Dude, what did you do?’ Finn asked, trying to sound casual.
‘Check it out, man,’ Puck replied, nudging Finn in the chest as his head gestured to the flagpole where every morning at 8am on the dot, Principal Figgins hoisted the flag of the God Bless the United States of America up the pole.
Finn looked up and saw it. A wheelchair dangled from the flagpole. The ropes on the pole had somehow been threaded through the spokes of one of the wheels and with the light wind blowing the wheelchair clattered and banged against the pole.
‘What the fuck did you do?’ Finn whispered and there was horror in his voice but Puck mistook it for awe.
‘It’s epic, yeah,’ Puck gloated. ‘It’s like our fucking senior class statement that William McKinley High School is like disabled. It’ll be legacy. We got it roped up so tight that you can’t even yank it down, like you’d need a forklift or something to get it off the pole. Figgins is going to freak.’
‘What about the kid who like owns the chair?’
‘That loser? He’s somewhere around, I guess. Azimo and Fitz jumped him. Look, it’s not like anyone cares.’
‘I care,’ Finn said and his voice was kind of quiet but there was a hint of steel in it too that Puck recognized.
Finn's eyes searched the grounds trying to see if he could find the brown-haired kid with glasses.
‘Dude, it’s no big deal. You’re failing to acknowledge the epicness of this, Finnessa,’ Puck told him, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
Finn shrugged Puck off and shoved away when he spotted two legs by the bonfire. The fire was still going strong and bits of spark and ember flew out from the trash can hitting the grass and the legs. Finn could see now the rest of Artie, his arms pushing up and then collapsing as he tried to drag the deadweight of his legs away from the fire.
‘I don’t understand why you’re having a cow over some loser you don’t even know,’ Puck called as Finn headed over to the boy.
‘His name is Artie.’
‘Whatever, it’s not like he’s on the football team on anything,’ Puck said as he trailed after Finn.
‘Well, he could have been once,’ Finn said as he spun around and glared at Puck.
‘Shit, man,’ Puck cursed, ‘I forgot about Sean. I forgot that you like hero worshipped Fretthold. But this ain’t personal. It’s not like you’re friends with this Artie kid or anything.’
‘No, you don’t get it, man. This is all bullshit.’ Finn told Puck, gesturing to the team drinking beer and the car doing wheelies. ‘And if hanging Artie’s wheelchair on the flagpole is going to be our fucking legacy then we’re all pretty much set to be dumbass pathetic losers as soon as high school is over.’
Finn stooped over and it kind of pained when Artie flinched like he was expecting Finn to punch him or something. Finn noticed that there was a gash across Artie’s forehead and his mouth looked busted up.
‘Get on my back,’ Finn instructed Artie.
Artie didn’t move but just lay there gawking at Finn. His glasses were crooked and a moment later Artie did move but only to straighten his glasses.
‘Look, I’m not going to hurt you,’ Finn said and threw Artie a smile that he hoped was reassuring. ‘But your chair is kinda on the flagpole. And while I’m freakishly tall and all that, I’m still not tall enough to get your chair down. So I figure you’ll need a ride if you wanna get out of here. And I think I can handle your weight on my back, if you want?’
Artie didn’t say no so Finn kind of took it as a yes and he crouched down close enough so Artie could lift himself onto his back.
Finn knew Puck was watching (all he had been doing for the last minutes or so was watching) and the rest of the team started to shout and cat-call but Finn ignored all of that. He got to his car and it was a little difficult opening the passenger door when you had an 18 year old boy on your back but somehow Finn managed. He carefully placed Artie into the car and Finn was reversing out of the lot and away from the school before he stopped to think and ask, ‘Uh, where’s your home, dude?’
The ride back to Artie’s house was quiet. Finn was glad because he didn’t really want to speak.
But when he opened the passenger door and went to help Artie out of the car, Artie asked him, ‘Why did you do it?’
‘Look, I, uh, wasn’t involved in the flagpole thing,’ Finn lamely defended. He didn’t really want to think about all the other stuff he had been involved in.
‘No, not that,’ Artie said. ‘Why did you help me?’
Finn struggled for an answer. There was no one reason and he wasn’t really sure he wanted to list every single messed up thought in his head right now to Artie. Finally, Finn settled on, ‘We were in glee club together, once.’
It didn’t really answer Artie’s question but he let it go and Finn managed to help Artie safely back into his house.
As Finn was walking down Artie’s driveway, it came to him that there was really only one place he wanted to be. That there was really only one person he wanted to talk to right now. So Finn jumped in his car and drove.