Well. Hello there, new fandom. I love Glee quite a bit and I wanted to get myself situated before things got too overcrowded. I've recently crawled out of a fandom that I was quite dedicated to for a very long time and I hope to make myself at home here. That sounds so very weird.
Anyway, I'm testing my skillz with my already-established-in-my-heart-of-hearts OTP, Rachel x Finn. This will be a two-shot, more than likely. Maybe a three-shot. Reviews would be appreciated!
Finn's story was not very original, Rachel knew.
Talented, tortured football star yearning to break away from the status quo. It was all very High School Musical to her, except for the fact Zac Efron was a obviously really a girl and Finn was a very attractive boy that had the power to make Rachel's stomach twist into knots.
Anyone who had ever seen a teen movie before knew that Finn was going to have some sort of secret that was going to make its way into the public sooner or later. It was the way things worked out.
Just because Finn's story was unoriginal, though, didn't mean that his entire existence was. There were layers and layers of personality there, Rachel was sure of this.
Why was she so sure? Because someone as amazing as Finn couldn't be so ridiculously simple.
No one ever assumed that Rachel had any secrets at all, as she was pretty open about everything. Anyone that wasn't the least bit hesitant of talking about their two fathers in such a small, backwards town probably didn't have anything interesting hiding under the surface.
Rachel believed that about herself. While her talents were extraordinary, her personality was not.
She had to no story to tell. Nothing about her childhood had been particularly shattering. She was well-adjusted, well-fed, well-read, well-polished and well-taught. She made good grades and never missed a ballet class. But if one wanted to take the time to dig deeper into Rachel's personality, complexities would start showing up; Rachel merely pushed them away to the very back of her mind.
Rachel pushed her own complexities to the back her mind and ignored them, because there was no way she was going to be any more complicated than Finn was. This was one of her many ways of putting him on a pedestal, of making herself understand why he would never want to be with her.
Because he was interesting and she was not.
Rachel's story was quite the mystery to Finn. What was also a mystery was the reason why he was starting to care so much or even want to talk to her at all. Sure, Rachel was pretty, but she wasn't conventionally pretty and those girls were normally always sort of hard to deal with.
Rachel was hard to deal with and Finn wasn't quite sure if dealing with her was going to be worth it or not. He could invest some time in trying to figure her out and trying to help her cope with the talent that wrapped itself around her but made her oblivious of the stress that was weighing her down---
See there? Hadn't he done a good job so far? Finn wasn't as dumb as everyone would have liked to believe and he noticed things. Only having known Rachel for a short time, he noticed how her eyes looked heavier and heavier every day, but that she was so good at covering those dark circles.
Finn had a list of things in his head that he'd noticed so far--- any movement that wasn't directly associated with dancing was entirely stiff, physical contact that occurred off the stage made her obviously uncomfortable (he noticed that her shoulders tensed up a ridiculous amount when she was uncomfortable), and despite how vindictive and back-biting she seemed, she was incredibly and inherently open-minded.
Of course, Finn had no idea why he cared so much.
And he kept telling himself that he wasn't going to care in a few days, or weeks, or maybe months. The "newness" of Rachel's slightly odd behavior was going to wear off and he was eventually just going to get sick of her.
He kept telling himself that and sometimes he could actually pretend that it was true.
Rachel would tell herself that more or less the same thing--- Finn's pretty face would become commonplace after a while and she would no longer get that horrible but wonderful kick-in-the-gut feeling whenever he entered the room.
This fallacy didn't stop Rachel from putting a considerable amount of effort into getting to know Finn.
Finn was having a harder and harder time covering up how intrigued he really was by Rachel.
And so things started to get a little interesting.
The ten minute breaks in between practicing numbers were Rachel's favorite part of rehearsal.
Finn always went to the same seat. House right, row three, seat four. He would pull out his cell phone and spend a varying amount of time on it. After doing so, he would get a book out of his bag and study. Initially, Rachel decided it would be best if she let Finn study, but she finally mustered up the courage to go talk to him one day when he was looking particularly frustrated.
"Are you having trouble?" she asked, glancing at the book. "The Great Gatsby… That's my favorite book."
Finn closed the book over his thumb to keep his place. "I like it. I really do. I just… can't focus," he sighed, running his free hand through his hair. "I've just been so tired lately, you know?"
Rachel cautiously sat down beside Finn. "I could… help you…?" she offered weakly, trying not to sound too eager. "I mean, if there's something you don't understand---"
"Would you really?" Finn was the one who should have been worried about sounding eager. "I mean--- uhm, if you have the time, maybe we could---"
"Yeah… ! Oh, of course, it's fine."
Finn reached into his backpack and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. "I have to do these questions and I haven't had time to do many of them. That's what's really stressing me out, see? I know that I can read the book but all I do when I pick it up is sit there and think about the questions I haven't done yet."
Rachel took the paper, slightly jerking her hand away when her finger brushed against Finn's. "Okay, you're on this one, right…? Well, the question is about the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, which are a pair of eyes painted on a billboard seems to look over the valley of ashes. This is an example, I think, of Fitzgerald actually letting his characters give meaning to an object and create the symbolism---"
"Symbolism for…?"
"Oh… Well, the eyes may represent God casting his judgment upon American society. I'm sorry… I kind of get carried away with The Great Gatsby, I suppose." Rachel let out a forced laugh. Completely nerding out over a book was never the best way to gain the romantic approval of a boy, she was quite certain of this.
"No, no, it's okay," Finn said, taking the paper back and writing down what Rachel had told him. "Thanks a lot, Rachel! I didn't know you were all into literature and all that."
Rachel shrugged and tried to shake off the entire thing. "It's not big deal, I just… pay attention in class. When you don't have friends distracting you…" She trailed off as Finn continued scribbling on his paper. She figured he wasn't listening. She also figured that saying something so personal was stupid.
"Sorry, what were you saying?" Finn asked when he finished writing.
"Nothing… It was nothing. Do you want me to answer anything else for you?"
Finn looked over the paper. "Maybe you could just… read what I have written down for the ones I've already answered and tell me if they're right," he suggested, handing the paper back to Rachel.
Rachel dreaded the task immediately. She didn't want to have to tell Finn that any of his answers were wrong. Surprisingly enough, though, his answers turned out to be a bit decent. Some of them, actually, were thought out and detailed… and good. "You got all of these right."
Finn let out a sigh of relief. "Really?" he asked, obviously in disbelief of his own capabilities.
Rachel let out a sigh of relief, too. "Yeah." All the answers had been right. Finn wasn't the idiot he allowed himself to be viewed as. "This is considerably awkward, but if you want to come over to my house later, I could help you finish the worksheet…?"
Finn's answer came after a brief moment of hesitation that felt like an eternity to Rachel. "Well, I have plans with Quinn later, so…"
Rachel recoiled a bit, absent-mindedly placing her hand over her heart and clutching at her sweater. She blushed deeply when she realized that she was doing this and promptly turned away from Finn. "Well, if you have plans then I guess there's nothing to be done," she muttered, letting the material of the sweater rub her fingers until they burned.
"But maybe some other time?" Finn offered, biting his lip and feeling the worst case of second-hand embarrassment to ever afflict someone. "I really like this stuff. It takes me a while to get into, but… yeah. I like it."
Rachel nodded, a bit furiously, and quickly excused herself, feeling nothing short of mortified.
Her slight victory of discovering a new side of Finn, one that knew he could be enthusiastic about learning if he weren't so tired, seemed inconsequential to that sinking feeling that accompanied the thought of Finn and his pretty, perfect girlfriend having a wonderful time while she sat and home, re-reading The Great Gatsby.
As Rachel ran off with that horrible, completely shattered look on her face, only one word registered in Finn's mind:
Hypersensitive.
It wasn't much but it was progress.
Okay, yeah. First chapter: done. Reviews are welcomed and loved and all that good stuff.