Title: Perfectly Marvelous

Pairing: Finn/Rachel

Rating: NC-17

Author's Note: Written in response to a prompt from a friend who asked for smut at Thanksgiving. :) Based, incidentally, on the wonderful memory of a clandestine middle-of-the-night rendezvous at the home of my ex-boyfriend's father at - you guessed it! - Thanksgiving. Hee hee. Use of the song "Maybe This Time" isn't because it was sung on Glee, but simply because it fits with "Perfectly Marvelous", also from Cabaret. Thanks to Ali for the title song suggestion!

The turkey is slightly dry, but Rachel knows the easy solution - a quick nudge at the elbow of her one comfort in this little storm retrieves the gravy boat, and she can enjoy her meal again. At least, she can enjoy the food – Finn wasn't lying when he said that his grandma made the best sweet potato casserole in the world. She's never tasted anything like it. While most of Finn's family has been gracious and kind to her since they arrived at his grandparents', she's having trouble seeing the redeeming qualities in his Aunt Lorna – a woman to whom tact seems to be a foreign concept. She's heard this maladroit woman speak frankly (and rather rudely) about a cousin who couldn't be there, three of her daughter's teachers, and her ex-husband – the third was understandable, but at the family Thanksgiving dinner? Really?

It's giving her a headache, but Rachel knows the easy solution for this, too. There is music within her; the repertoire of Broadway and beyond hums in her veins, gives her a remedy for the ennui of long subway rides to auditions, a bounce in her step and a lyric on her tongue as she takes the Swiffer to the floor in their apartment, and a means of escape in times like these.

Today, stuffing and mashed potatoes share center stage with Sally and Cliff and "…I've this perfectly marvelous girl, in my perfectly beautiful room…and we're living together and having a marvelous time…" Perhaps, she thinks, as she takes another bite of that heavenly sweet potato casserole, she'll ask her manager on Sunday night if she can incorporate a song from Cabaret into her act. It's one of her favorites, and anyway, it's been years…she's over that incident now.

Nervousness isn't new to her, of course – she learned long ago that it's healthy to be a bit jittery before going onstage. But this type of nervous, the look-down-at-her-plate-or-only-at-Finn type, the kind that has kept her from saying more than a few short sentences since their arrival just before dinner...this type has caught her off-guard. (She blames Aunt Lorna.)

But those sweet potatoes are delicious, and Finn's already eaten two helpings before his fork has ever touched turkey, so it's now or never, she thinks. She'll speak up over the table chatter, ask for the recipe. She has thoughts of making it on her night off next week as a surprise, and she smiles as she places her fork beside her plate.

She takes a breath to speak, but her voice isn't the next to fill the air across the table.

"So I hear we're very close to having a Broadway starlet in the family!" Aunt Lorna squawks.

The implicit meaning in her words is not lost on Rachel, and her breath catches in her throat. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Finn's hand stop and his fork come to rest, unmoving, in his mashed potatoes. A quick glance at his face reveals widened eyes, focused somewhere near the gravy boat, blinking as if to fully take in his Aunt's words…or perhaps to will the woman to stop. In another situation, at another time, she might be amused at the look on his face; however, Aunt Lorna hasn't stopped. "I've always wanted to go up there and see that Lés Mis. Are you in that one? How many of those shows have you done now? I've heard you have a real nice voice, and with that pretty skin…" she trails off, takes another bite of turkey.

Rachel's quiet thank you is lost under the next words Aunt Lorna speaks, and it's right about now that she notices how hard she's gripping the stem of her wine glass and that Finn's pinky has curled over hers. He knows this is a discussion she dreads. She stares at their hands and wishes they were somewhere else right now – no sweet potato casserole was worth having thirteen months and nine days' worth of discouragement laid bare for all to see.

"…so I'm sure you can get us free tickets, right? Those shows are always really expensive!"

She's sure her face is burning, but like any actress worth her weight, she controls her voice, hides the tide of hurt and anger and just a shade of disappointment beneath an even tone, and informs Aunt Lorna that no, free tickets to Lés Miserables aren't an option, but she can come to the dinner theatre any night she'd like and drinks will be on the house. Finn's mother's eyes meet Rachel's across the table; there's softness and sympathy there, and that, coupled with the longtime governor on her words – a teenage voice, with just the hint of an echo from the auditorium, telling her that she "talked a lot more than she should" – keeps her from saying anything another word.

A shrug and, "Oh. Well, maybe we'll do that, then. Yeah," completes the conversation, to Rachel's immense relief. Finn squeezes her pinky with his, gives her a long sideways look, then returns to his potatoes. She's suddenly not hungry anymore.

"…yes, I've a highly agreeable life, in my perfectly beautiful room…with my nearly invisible, perfectly marvelous girl…"

She stares at her reflection in the mirror as she brushes her teeth, trying to see what each casting director sees when they look at her. Her nose is most certainly too big, and she's lacking the proverbial tits and ass (that she knows "won't get you jobs unless they're yours"). But she knows she can sing. And dammit, her body can move as gracefully as any of the other hopefuls with whom she's shared hours in line.

A year, she thinks. Four seasons and thirteen rent checks and sixty-seven auditions and a couple hundred nights of singing to a room full of people who continue to talk to each other during her set. She's starting to feel like the cabaret version of the Piano Man. It would be a greater shame to her if she didn't return home each night to words of love and encouragement, and if she didn't look out every once in a while and feel that little thrill of surprise at seeing his face in the audience, beaming at her with pride. Her wage and tips support them just as much as his paycheck, and she knows it – but this isn't part of what she'd imagined all those years.

Rachel sighs as she quietly pads across the basement to the fold-out sofa bed where she's to sleep tonight, the tile floor cold against her feet. The room is silent but for the quiet creak of the floor overhead; it's such a contrast to the white noise of the city, a familiar friend now outside their bedroom window. Burrowing under the blankets, she curls her knees to her chest beneath Finn's old Ohio State sweatshirt, pulling her hands inside the sleeves.

In the hush, it's easy to let her mind wander to the feel of a warm body pressed to her back, a sure hand that knows just what to do, just where to touch, to make her pulse quicken. In their own bed at home, her sweatshirt would be on the floor and his tongue would be…

Suddenly, she hears something, and in an instant, her senses are on high alert. With no windows in the basement living room, the space is nothing more than a box of inky blackness, and she holds her breath until she hears a whispered, "Rach?"

She extracts herself from the oversized sweatshirt – as well as her thoughts – and sits up in bed, blankets pulled to her chin. "What…?" she manages. "Finn? What the hell?"

"Are you okay down here?" he asks in a whisper, the genuine concern evident in his voice.

Rachel ignores it. "Well, I was," she hisses. A hand that she knows he can't see clutches her chest above her heart, waiting for the beats to even out. She takes a deep breath. "You terrified me!"

His voice is closer when he responds, and she imagines his cringe, followed by a sheepish half-smile in the darkness. "Sorry…guess I didn't think that through." Closer still – he obviously remembers his way around the room from visits as a child – comes a quiet, "I don't remember it being this dark down here. I can't even see you." With a note of revelation in his tone, it's so Finn that she can't help but smile. It's easier to enjoy his presence now that her breathing has returned to normal.

The mattress creaks and sinks under his weight as he sits on the side, and it's so natural to reach out for him, such a comfort to wrap her fingers around his shoulder and pull him toward her. Their lips meet in a minty-fresh kiss, and it's familiar and sweet, but suffused with a charge that swirls between them, tangible even in the deep darkness of the room. A moment later, her tongue is sliding across his freshly-brushed teeth and her palms are splayed across his back, warm against her fingertips.

He shifts, swinging his long legs onto the mattress and settling between hers. As one hand brushes across the sensitive skin of her ear and the other traces a smooth path up her thigh, she wonders if he's missing their bed at home, the closeness they've shared each night over the past year, just like she is.

The question is answered in the way he kisses her, the feeling of his hands against her skin, and the fact that he should be falling asleep on the sofa upstairs right now, but is instead pressed against her body, his arousal evident. This is forbidden territory on which they tread, but she isn't planning to stop the ascent of his hand up and along her curves, nor the slide of his tongue against hers. They're simply caught in the moment, and in each other.

His hand moves under the hem of her sweatshirt, stalling for one long moment between her legs, fingers against soft cotton. He circles once, twice, and that sweet pressure is all it takes to light the nerves in her body like a power grid. She moans against his lips, the sound amplified by the perfect stillness of the dark basement room.

This seems, in turn, to ignite his fire. His palm quickly slides across the plane of her abdomen, then brushes over nipples hardened by chill and want; he eases both by covering her breast with his mouth, his tongue warm and wet against her skin. She murmurs his name, the silence broken again, as he trails his tongue across her chest to the other side.

The cloak of darkness in the room lends a sense of thrill to each moment – she doesn't know where his hands or his tongue will be next, what he'll choose as his method of taking her higher, bringing her closer to the edge. So when he ends his journey across her skin, swirling around her nipple, then taking her breast into his mouth and sucking – hard – she almost, almost cries out in shock and surprise and desire. Instead, her hand grasps his back as he works his tongue on her sensitive skin, and she pulls him roughly against her, hips grinding against him and legs wrapping around his thighs. It's his turn to moan softly, the gentle vibration of his lips on her breast sending a shiver down her spine.

There is no sound from upstairs, no creaking floorboards or hushed voices. By all accounts, the rest of the house's current occupants are sound asleep. Still, she knows they ought to stop, cuddle for a few minutes until their breathing slows, and kiss goodnight; she certainly shouldn't be pulling her sweatshirt over her head, giving his fingers and his lips and oh, his tongue a greater expanse of skin to explore. This is Finn's grandparents' house, with his grandparents' rules…but somehow, in the moment, that knowledge becomes more of a thrill, and just makes her heart pound faster, a quiet roar in her ears.

Snaking a hand between them, she curls her fingers around his length, stroking him through his shorts; the sound of his sharp intake of breath, coupled with the noise from the back of his throat is immensely gratifying. She reaches for the waistband of his shorts, pushing them down his legs to release his erection. His lips leave her breast as he finishes the task and tosses them to the floor, his t-shirt quickly joining them somewhere beside the bed in the darkness. When their bodies connect again, she's surprised to feel his lips crush against her own, his tongue seeking access, and she can't contain the quiet whimper that escapes as she breathes.

She has to imagine his expressions here in the dark room, but she knows each contour of his face, has seen a multitude of emotions pass across his features. She knows that right now, his eyes are closed tightly, his brow slightly furrowed, and she wonders whether he's picturing her, too – if he's seeing her not in this velvety blackness, but in the half-light of their bedroom in New York, her expression honest and open and shining with love for him.

Their hands collide as they both reach for her underwear, and she giggles silently at the clumsiness the darkness imparts, wiggling one leg, then the other, out of the final piece of clothing that separates them.

She doesn't waste a moment, and neither does he, as her legs fall open for him and he positions himself at her entrance, teasing her for only seconds before plunging inside. She nearly climaxes immediately at the feeling of his erection filling her, his skin close against her most sensitive spot.

When he begins to move, she can barely find a place for her now-trembling hands, she's so overwhelmed. It's almost too much – his body pressed to hers and touching her so deep within, the sound of their ragged breathing nearly drowned by her pounding heartbeat.

He punctuates each stroke with the words of a whispered declaration, the phrases an uneven staccato.

"You – " the word catches in his throat. "Are so –" he exhales loudly, his breath hot against her neck. "Beautiful, Rachel."

He doesn't need to see her in this moment to know this. Everything she felt before he came downstairs and at dinner and daily in the back of her mind – each of her doubts dissolves. Of course they'll return, but in the here and now, she is loved by a man she never thought she'd have, once upon a time. And he believes she's beautiful.

The rush of emotion at his words makes her chest constrict, and she feels the warmth of her tears slide from the corners of her eyes and into her hair. Her hands clutch at his back, crushing him to her, this not-quite-perfect but definitely marvelous man, as she clenches tightly around him to pull him deeper inside.

Suddenly, her eyes snap open and she gasps into his shoulder, hearing his groan of surprise at the same time. They've barely begun, but her senses are heightened with the thrill of this clandestine meeting and the power in her emotions. Her climax sears through her nerves, fingertips to toes to the top of her head, bright behind her eyes like spotlights turned upon a darkened stage. It doesn't seem to end, her muscles pulsing around him as he moves, and she has to consciously make an effort not to cry out, to keep her voice low as even her chest vibrates with this intense feeling.

"Yes," she whispers roughly into his ear. "Oh...Finn."

Her hands find his face in the darkness and she brings his lips to hers, palms against his cheeks and fingertips in his hair, kissing him deeply as the final moments of her own orgasm give way to his. She feels his jaw drop open, hears his breath, harsh and quick, and suddenly his mouth is on her shoulder, undoubtedly marking her. Reeling with the moment, she thinks absurdly that she's glad she brought a turtleneck to wear tomorrow.

She holds him close and he softly kisses her neck as they return to this dark, quiet room once more, their breathing the only sound in the stillness. She doesn't want him to slip from her body, much less climb the stairs to his makeshift bed in the living room. But he does, of course, and tells her quietly that he's so glad he came downstairs to check on her, his characteristic half-smile evident in his voice.

They both jump at the creaking sound of a floorboard upstairs, and he locates and sorts their discarded clothes with a new haste. Still-reluctant good-night kisses are placed against eyelids, cheeks and lips, the last creating a flutter in her stomach once more. As he makes his way back to the closed door of the basement, she holds back a giggle when she hears his whispered, "Shit!" from the far side of the room. It isn't her pain, of course, but she figures that a stubbed toe isn't a terribly high price to pay for the benefits of his trip to the basement.

"'Night, Rach," he whispers from the doorway. "And, uh, Happy Thanksgiving."

She grins and whispers back across the room, "Good night, Finn. Sleep well." And then he's gone, his footsteps fading away up the stairs.

Surrounded by the faint, lingering smell of sex and sweat and Finn himself, she curls up beneath the blanket, her knees inside the sweatshirt once more, taking it all in. The room isn't quite so lonely anymore, and it's far easier now to fall toward sleep and a new day tomorrow. Still smiling into her pillow, Rachel closes her eyes, thankful indeed.

A small stack of recipe cards topped with a post-it note reading "for Rachel" accompany them back to the city. She may never make a turkey in their tiny oven, but the gesture means more. And sweet potatoes have now found a spot on her shopping list.

Not every day is perfect – there are difficult directors and better performers (whether Rachel will admit that or not) – but a new current flows beneath her as she walks into her auditions. Her time is bound to come. Soon.

And when she sings "Maybe This Time" for the first time at the dinner theatre, it springs to life from deep within her, because this standard is suddenly a metaphor, something akin to a shiny new sheet of adhesive gold stars. One day soon, she'll have a different answer to that often-asked question, and no small voice will whisper "loser" from the back of her mind at a family dinner again.

She opens her eyes mid-note, glancing over the microphone and directly into the smiling gaze of her biggest fan. He grins up at her, enthralled as always, and his eyes shine with honest, clear pride.

He thinks she's beautiful and believes she can do this. So she will – no more maybe.

Amidst the applause, she decides that even if it comes out of the oven at quarter to one in the morning, he'll have sweet potato casserole tonight. It'll be perfect.