She says his name in her sleep. Repeats it, over and over and over again. It sounds like some sort of prayer. He lies next to her, watching her back. She is having a nightmare, like she would when things didn't work out between them. He can tell by the way her shoulders are trembling.
Usually he would wake her, tell her everything is going to be okay. They would make things right. But this time he can't.
Because he's not sure things are ever going to work out between them again.
He's certain of one thing, however: they won't work out together in New York.
The loft is quiet and dark. He looks at the alarm clock on the nightstand beside him. It's 4AM and his head is full of all the wrong things, like how Rachel kissed that Brody guy. Like how he should have known. He knew New York wasn't for him, with its dirty streets and tireless dreamers, but he'd always thought he would somehow find his place next to, well, her.
God, how stupid he's been. Of course she would find a guy in New York, the city of her dreams. And of course that guy would look like a fucking ken doll and smell like coconut. And of course he would sing a duet with her in this bar, with fairy lights dangling all around their heads and people whispering about how great they harmonize. With him watching and wanting to die while stuffing his face with stale nachos - as one does when he doesn't even know what to call the girl he loves most because things have become so complicated, they make him dizzy.
It's uncomfortably warm under the covers and he's sweating, but he doesn't want to move - he knows that if he does he'll probably walk out the door and never return.
He can feel her foot against his shin. She's calmed down now, breathing steadily. He wants to touch her so bad, wants to hold her close. Call her 'babe' and kiss her temple, like he would when they were in high school and sleeping next to her was the most natural thing he could imagine. But he can't. Because it wouldn't be right. Because he isn't the guy to bring her flowers, follow her around town and sing duets with her in sticky bars with people intently watching him. He tried, and he can't.
He can't see it happening. Him living here like she proposed. Going grocery shopping with her and listening to stories about the kids in her dance class without having anything to tell her in return, because while she was at school he'd roamed the streets of New York, feeling nothing. Nothing at all. He can't picture this perfect life she's talking about.
With him waiting tables or working at some record store and her soaring. And it's not that he doesn't want her to - he does. So much. But not with him watching from the sidelines with nothing to show for himself. Every time he imagines what that perfect future with her would look like, he feels a rush of adrenaline. The bad kind. The one that makes you run as far and fast as you can. Because to him their future, eventually, would look like this:
She's a famous broadway star. They have two kids, a girl and a boy. The girl's name is Kaya, the boy's he hasn't figured out yet.
They love him but they love Rachel more. They have a house in Brooklyn, in one of the safer neighborhoods. He reads his kids bedtime stories. They fall asleep before he can finish the second chapter. The curtains in their room have little rocketships on them. They're the only thing in the room he's picked out but they don't even notice them because they're kids. Rachel gets home late and most of the time he's asleep by then. Sometimes she places a kiss on his forehead while he pretends he doesn't notice.
She's asleep when he gets ready for work, so they never have breakfast together.
He works in a sticky office that smells like printers and cheap, black coffee. He hates his job.
Rachel usually picks the kids up from school when she's done with rehearsals. Sometimes she has the day off and takes them to the zoo.
He works long hours and has nothing to show for them. He takes the subway home, sometimes he walks.
They have a Russian girl from NYU babysit the kids when Rachel isn't home and Kurt's busy.
They go to parties sometimes. He hates them, because no one ever talks to him and if they do it's to ask him about Rachel.
He doesn't mind the questions per se, he minds the fact that he sometimes can't answer them because frankly, he doesn't know her that well anymore.
They rarely have sex anymore and if they do it's with the lights out and the blinds drawn. Complete darkness.
He loves her but he's not in love with her. Because when they're out with her friends they don't share the same glass of wine, and when she brushes her hair and he catches her glance in the mirror she doesn't smile but looks away. And when she writes something on the mirror with her lipstick it's never for him. It's for her or the kids. Reminders. Of all the things that must be done. He's in her life but he feels like he's cheated his way into it.
She tells him she loves him after each of her premieres, and it feels as if she says it because she owes it to him. He knows it isn't true. She could've made it without him putting her onto that damn train. He still brings her flowers every time. He doesn't tell her to break a leg before the show because Rachel Berry doesn't need luck anymore.
One day she starts crying out of the blue. Tells him she's having an affair with her director and he's focusing on the pattern on the table cloth because he can't bear to look at her.
They're getting a divorce. Their kids are devastated but after a while it passes. She moves into an apartment in Manhattan, tells him to keep the house.
His kids spend every second week with him. He can't really look at them because each time he does it's like looking at tiny versions of him and her, spends his days hating his job and hating Rachel for having done the inevitable. Eventually he throws himself off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Rachel is fast asleep as he stuffs the pyjama pants in his bag and puts his jeans on. The air is cold and he kind of wants to crawl back into bed next to her and see what the morning brings. But then, he sees himself jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge in the front of his inner eye and figures it's better not to risk it. He's standing in front of the curtain that divides Rachel's bedroom from the rest of the loft. He hears her shifting in bed and looks back. It's the sight of her lying there so peacefully that unsettles him. She's going to hate him when she wakes up. Because yes, they are supposed to talk about the whole Brody thing; they are supposed to work things out. But he can't work things out the way everybody wants him to. He can't spend the rest of his life in a city that makes his stomach churn. Looking back, he wishes things were different. He wishes he were different. Better. He wishes he could be the guy to sing with her in stuffy bars, making her eyes glisten and her lips all curl up at the edges. But he can't because he doesn't belong here, doesn't belong in this world made for dreamers.
He pushes the curtain aside and hopes the sound doesn't wake her.
The next time he sees her it's two days later, in the auditorium of their old high school. She tells him she can't do this anymore. At least not now. She tells him that they're done. And as she kisses him one last time it doesn't feel the way it should. He doesn't get that feeling in his heart, the one that makes him feel like flying. It feels like the opposite. Like he's falling in a dream, without the waking up part.
When she backs away from him she catches his glance, giving him a small nod. A heads up. Next time he leaves her she'll smash his whole being, not just his heart. He watches her leave the auditorium and as the sound of her footsteps fades away, he leaves too.
He's in his car in front of McDonald's, eating his third cheeseburger, when his phone rings.
It's Kurt. For a split second he wants to ignore it because he doesn't want to talk about Rachel and having his heart broken once again. Eventually he decides against it, because… well, he doesn't want to get yelled at once he gets home.
"Hello?"
"Finally someone picks up!", Kurt says and it's so loud Finn honks the horn,completely alarmed. "I've been calling Rachel for almost an hour now and she won't answer so could you ask her what she wants to have for dinner? Carole's making potato salad and.."
"Why are you asking me that? It's not like I can read her mind.."
"Yeah, but you could ask her. Or put her on the phone." Finn can almost hear him rolling his eyes. "Jeez, Finn. It's not that hard."
Oh god. So she hasn't told him. Wonderful. Now he has to be the first to get yelled at. How freaking great. He can already see the face Kurt's going to make when he gets home and he kind of really feels like spending the night at Puck's place. Or just move in there altogether. He knows his mom won't be enthused about the break up, either. Not since she practically called Rachel her daughter-in-law at Burt's birthday dinner a few weeks ago.
"Uhm...It's not that easy now that I'm in the car."
"Come on, Finn,just put her on the phone! It's really not that hard."
"I can't", he says and hopes Kurt understands so he won't have to clarify what happened.
"What do you mean you can't? You're in your car and…",Kurt pauses. Finally he's understood. Now he's going to give him two seconds to breathe until he starts yelling at him. Finn knows from experience. "God,Finn,gross!"
"What?"
Wait, what?
"You can just tell me you two are… busy."
"Kurt. It's not that."
"It's not something to be ashamed of. Remember that time you walked in on me and Blaine while we were watching 'Dirty Dancing', it wasn't that big of a..-"
"She's not here, Kurt," he says, cutting him off. "...we broke up."
Kurt doesn't say a thing for a while and it makes him want to scream. Because Kurt not saying anything at all is worse than being yelled at. He was expecting someone to tell him to go back to Rachel, make things right again. He was expecting Kurt to magically reach through the phone, smack him and tell him to snap out of whatever mental state he's in. Of course, Kurt doesn't.
Instead he quietly tells Finn he should've known. How he should have known Rachel would react that way. After all, he'd left her in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. It wasn't as if he couldn't have left a note. That's when Finn loses his temper and starts driving.
Because it's not like that. It's not as if he didn't try to make it easy for her. It's not as if he didn't think this whole thing trough. He just needed some time away from her, New York and his thoughts of a future he couldn't possibly look forward to. And he does have a plan. He just has to work on it, but he can't do that in a place that's constantly reminding him of all the things he's not meant to do, all the things he could but cannot do because that's just the way it is for him. That's how they always have been. He's just been too dumb to see it.
"Didn't you think - for one second - about what this would do to her? How she must've felt. Waking up to you just…gone?", Kurt asks him and he feels like choking. That was exactly what he'd been thinking about when he removed his hand from around her waist. It was shaking so hard he was afraid it would wake her.
"I did. I just, I couldn't stay, Kurt."
"You could've told her that."
"And have her looking at me like that time I told her she was some sad clown hooker? Have her eyes get all dark and glistening? Yeah,I'd rather not."
He can see it in front of his eyes. It makes him sick. Because yes, she had looked at him with sad eyes, but they hadn't been empty. They hadn't been disappointed. Just hurt.
He could deal with hurt. He was used to hurt. Disappointment was a whole different thing. And she'd never been disappointed in him. Not even in the auditorium after he'd left her. Not even after she'd said they were done. Because he somehow managed to be a hero to her. Still. And he never told anyone because it was private and awkward and weird, but he needed that - he needed someone to believe in him when nobody did. Rachel always had, even when she shouldn't have. And he wanted to live up to her expectations. Everyone else didn't matter, really, because everyone else had let him down before and she hadn't. That was why he had to leave. Because staying would've made him ordinary to her, and eventually she would have been disappointed in him. He couldn't let that happen.
Kurt doesn't get it. He just goes on and on about how irresponsible it had been, that whole going home thing.
"She'd been waiting for you, you know. She'd been asking about you every day. It's always been 'Have you heard from Finn?' and 'Do you think Finn's alright?'. She was so happy when you showed up, she made me go back to the 7/11 around the corner and get you fruit loops."
"Don't you think I know that?"
"It was 2AM, Finn!", Kurt's practically screaming now.
"I don't even like fruit loops that much. I don't usually have them, to be honest."
"That's not the point, Finn." Another eye roll he can practically hear. "The point is that she'd been waiting for you to come and sweep her off her feet and be the person you promised her to be."
"I tried to, okay?"
"Obviously, you didn't try hard enough."
"What's that supposed to mean? I went to that stupid bar with her and watched her sing with the Broadway 101 dude and you know what Kurt? It sucked." Silence. He can hear Kurt breathe in sharply as he runs a red light,slightly enjoying the other cars honking behind him. He doesn't feel like being a hero today.
"Oh, so this is about Brody."
"No, it's not about him. It's about the fact that I couldn't breathe the whole time I was in New York. And I knew how much of a shitty move me leaving was, but… I just couldn't stay, okay?"
"I think it is about him. And you were running away because it was easier than standing up for yourself. It was easier than proving you could actually..."
"I made sure she didn't notice I was leaving. I made sure she didn't hear my footsteps. I made sure she didn't hear the curtains being drawn, okay? I made sure she was going to be okay. I wrote her a note on a post-it but I couldn't leave it because-"
"Why are you telling me this?"
"I made sure she didn't hear me leaving. I made sure she could have us live in her little perfect bubble for as long as I could. I hoped she'd wake up and think I was getting breakfast or whatever. Because those things matter to her and I wanted to be the person to make them all perfect for her."
"Oh, Finn..", Kurt sighs and it sounds heartfelt. Finn thinks he's about to cry at the sound of Kurt's voice. Because now he knows he finally gets it.
And by the time Kurt is reassuring him, he's repeating it over and over again. Over and over and over and over again. It's like word vomit, flowing out of him, making him tremble.
He's rocking back and forth, holding tightly onto the steering wheel. He's in front of Puck's house now, and Kurt is still talking to him but he can't understand what he's saying. Words don't make sense to him anymore. He's just saying it again and aga in until he's crying. Hard. And the words are nothing and he is nothing and the world is nothing. But he's still saying it, screaming it, because if he didn't his head would explode and the world with it.
"I hoped the sound wouldn't wake her. I hoped the sound wouldn't wake her. I hOPED THE SOUND OF THE CURTAINS BEING DRAWN WOULDN'T WAKE HER!"
By the time Kurt repeats that it was him dropping a plate in the kitchen and not the sound of the curtains to wake her, Finn's thrown his phone out the window.
Puckerman tells him he's been a pussy. Finn takes a shot for knowing. He tells Puck he misses sex with Rachel because a) he's starting to get really freaking drunk and b) he really feels like telling someone. Someone who gets it.
Puck doesn't seem to listen. He's busy playing some video game his brother Jake lent him. And it's weird because Finn doesn't know what to do to stop the earth from moving so fast. Since when does Puckerman have a little brother? And since when is he into video games? And how is he the only one drinking when Puck used to be the one who'd always start. But 'not tonight, dude', because 'it's Quinn, man' and she's 'not gonna be here in like, years' and he doesn't want his date with her to be all sloppy and short like all their previous dates - which is why Finn has the whiskey bottle to himself. And yeah, he's probably going to walk back home later since to him, things are already getting more depressing as it is. It's the first time he's had whiskey and it tastes like swallowing an eel. Still, he likes the burn in his throat and the way his cheeks are starting to get all red and warm.
He doesn't even care how bad things are. He's all soft and warm. As he looks around, the world seems to follow. And for the first time since he finished high school, he's happy. Not fully happy but it's a start. And he thinks that maybe, maybe things are already starting to look up again.
When Finn gets home Rachel's car is in the driveway. Or like, her dad's car. He curses at the sight of it.
The first thing that comes to mind is to call Puck and tell him to pick him up. They'll go to his date together. It's not like Quinn doesn't know him. She'll probably be glad to spend some time with Finn now that his cheeks are all soft and warm. He imagines a scenario where Quinn drops a fork and as she goes to pick it up her hand accidentally touches his cheek. Instantaneously she falls for him all over again, tells him how wonderful he is. How wonderful he's been all along. Him and his wonderful cheeks. In this scenario, he tells her he's taken. But if things were different, he'd totally take her offer in consideration. And yes, this is exactly why he should call Puckerman and tell him to pick him up. Problem is, he can't find his phone.
He looks for it in all his pockets, the fact that he'd thrown it out the window earlier long forgotten. Two minutes later he's sure of the fact that his phone has been stolen. Whatever. He's far too happy to be sad over a stupid phone. And who needs a phone when all the lights are magically dancing in front of your eyes, dancing with you, making you sway?
By the time he reaches his room twenty minutes later - after several attempts of trying to slide up the banister whilst telling himself gravity is something for losers, because what Mary Poppins can do, he can, too - he's forgotten about Rachel's car in the driveway. He's forgotten about her altogether.
Sometime around 2AM he wakes up to someone stroking his hair. At first he thinks it's his mom, because Kurt pretty much gave up on the idea of them working out as a couple. But then he hears music softly playing in the distance and then there's this smell that makes him think of this poem by Walt Witman and having his neck kissed and suddenly he's afraid of opening his eyes because he doesn't want this dream to end. His head is spinning. Faster than before, and he's afraid he's going to fly away.
It's a pretty strange dream, if you ask him. Because he's never had a dream where he didn't see anything but blackness in front of his eyes. And if this is a dream, how come he can feel someone's hands caressing his scalp? Not that he's complaining or anything.
He tries to open his eyes and suddenly, he's lying on his bed. And for a second his whole world has come together. Because the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes are legs.
And he's pretty sure this is a dream because he knows these legs, he knows these black high knee socks. And there is no way Rachel Berry is sitting on his bed, stroking his hair at two in the morning, with the world in flames and both of their hearts shattered. But as he turns his head in her lap she gives him a small smile and there's her thumb gently rubbing the skin on his forehead and he can feel his heart melting into this giant puddle of… gooey love. She's so beautiful. With her make-up smeared and her hair all messy. She looks like a piece of art. God, he loves her so much.
They stay like that for a while. His head in her lap, his eyes closed. The record player is playing some Coldplay record that had been laying around the room for ages and honestly, he feels like flying. Not because he's lying in bed with a girl whose fingertips are making him all soft on the inside. And not because he's drunk half a bottle of whiskey but because he's here. Because he's home. Because he's not in a city that's making him feel like the biggest idiot. Because here he can be the person he used to be. After all everybody in Lima thinks of him as Finn Hudson, the quarterback. No one thinks of him as Finn Hudson, the weird dude from Ohio who doesn't really know what to do with his life. No, he's okay here. His head doesn't seem to explode here. Plus his cheeks are still super soft and warm from the whiskey, which makes him really happy. He tells Rachel to feel his cheek. It's the first thing he tells her. She puts her hands on his cheeks and smiles.
They are indeed very soft, she admits. He can tell she's drunk by the way the words are leaving her mouth. All slurred and slow. And when she kisses his cheeks her breath smells like champagne. He wants to kiss her so bad. Because he's totally seeing the universe in her eyes as she tells him something he cannot quite understand, but it doesn't really matter because she's here and her hands are all over his head and they're so soft, it's making him upset. He has to think of that Brody guy. How these hands have touched him. He feels like punching Brody and his blazing smile.
For having been there for her when he'd been to much of a coward. God, he wants to rip his face off. But then he looks at Rachel and it's all okay again. He can tell she loves him. Still. And he loves her so much he kisses her thigh, the spot right next to where his head is laying.
"Did you notice the lights?", Rachel asks him eventually. He doesn't know how long they have been lying on his bed but it feels like an eternity.
"Huh?"
She points to the wall behind the headboard and as he looks up there's like, a million fairy lights dangling from the ceiling. They're white and make him think of, well, Rachel.
After all they're all pure and bright, just like her.
"I bought them in Chicago", she says and her eyes get really sad so he kisses the palm of her hand. "We were there for Nationals, remember?"
"Yeah, of course."
"It was… it was going to be my wedding gift to you." Her lips curl up at the edges. Her face is all teeth and love.
"They're beautiful." He wants to tell her she is, too. But he doesn't because he doesn't have the right words.
"I was going to hang them in our little shoebox apartment in New York. I had it all planned out, you know? You were supposed to be there… smiling out from ear to ear. Finn, you were supposed to move into this apartment with me and we were supposed to be… perfect. Just perfect."
Her words come down as rain. He feels his face getting wet and salty. The room is still spinning but he can feel her spinning in another direction, because when he reaches out for her, she backs away.
"I'm sorry, Rachel."
"It's fine." He can tell it isn't. "Kurt told me, you know..."
"Yeah", he says. "I know." Although, for a second, he doesn't even know who Kurt is.
"I wouldn't have told you to come, you know. If you had told me you didn't want to."
"I guess.."
"I just thought you'd never leave me", she whispers. It's an observation. As if she'd discovered a moth on the wall.
"But I'm here..."
She looks down on him, traces the curve of his lips, his jawline. Then, she smiles. It's small and her eyes are so sad he wants to run to bring her the moon on a silver platter and tell her it's all okay because right now, they're okay.
"Yeah, you're here." Her index finger is stroking his cheek. "My Finn… and you're not going anywhere."
He sits up at that. And god, she's so small, he wants to put her in his pocket. He doesn't know why, but he's crying. Hard. And he doesn't know how to stop it.
"I'm not going anywhere, Rachel", he says and reaches out with his hand. She doesn't move away. Her skin feels like the wings of the butterfly he caught in third grade,so unbelievably soft he's afraid it's going to crumble under his touch.
He places soft kisses all over her face. "I'm not going anywhere", he says between kisses.
They're both crying now. The room is spinning all around with music raining down on them from every wall and for one second, they are okay.
Because right now, everything is how it should be. His lips are all over her and her hands are all over him and it's like they're melting into each other like hot candle wax, becoming one.
His insides are all soft and her cheeks are hot and flushed and he loves her so much, he's afraid to tell her.
The universe is inside her. He's so afraid of losing her so he holds her, as close as he can. With her lips on the skin under his chin, laughing. And he's so happy and dizzy he wants the world to stop.
They spend the rest of the night talking about anything but New York. About high school and how the fairy lights suit his room perfectly. About Puckerman and Quinn going on a date. About Kurt passing out after his fifth glass of champagne. At some point the air is filled with silent chuckles and soft words. And for a moment, it's everything he's ever wanted.
He's changed the record to his favorite White Stripes album, 'Elephant'.
When he sits down next to her on the bed,leaning his head against the headboard,she settles between his legs. Her hair smells like paradise.
They have champagne straight from the bottle. At some point he wraps his hands around her wrists, playing air drums with her hands, like he would when they were in high school. He decides he wants to remember her like this. Sitting in his lap with her hair tickling his chin and her hands in his. All wonderful and lovely, making his insides all soft.
When the record stops playing, they're almost asleep. He's half-sitting, half-lying, and Rachel's still in between his legs, her back on his stomach.
She tells him she will always love him, that she meant what she'd said in the auditorium. Because to her, he's still the quarterback that swept her off her feet. That's what he'll always be.
His left hand is on her stomach, his right is mindlessly tracing patterns along her side. He marvels at the softness of her dress. God, it's so soft it makes him want to cry. But then again, so does Rachel. She tells him this is what surrendering is. Which is totally crazy if you ask Finn, but he doesn't tell her. He just nods.
Before they fall asleep, she asks him to visit her in New York sometime. He promises her he will but he knows he probably won't.
They turn the light off and he kisses her with fairy lights still dangling all around their heads. Ha! Suck it, coconut guy! He doesn't need a damn bar filled with judgemental people and stale nachos to win over her heart (but like, a bottle of champagne… which the coconut guy doesn't have to know, by the way). Pretty soon he starts to feel dizzy.
The bad kind of dizzy. The champagne is starting to go to his head and drag him down and he wonders if Rachel feels the same way.
The last thing he asks her is if they're still broken up. He can feel her nodding against his chest.
"But Finn?", she says, all slurred and warm. Her voice is so beautiful. Even when she's totally drunk. He wants to tell her but he forgets. "Huh?"
"My heart's a drummer."
And as she says it he can basically hear her grin in between the words.
Then, she takes his hand from her stomach and places a kiss on each of his knuckles. And god, he wants to halt the sun so she won't ever leave his side.
After all, her plane leaves in the morning. Plus they're not a couple anymore. But whatever they are right now, this warm, gooey mess of limbs randomly cobbled together, he's okay with. The last thing he sees before closing his eyes is her, peacefully asleep in his arm. Just as it should be. He doesn't care for the aftermath because right now, they're okay. More than that. They're perfect.
When he wakes up it's past noon and Rachel is long gone. His head feels like someone smashed it with a sledgehammer, and after three minutes of being awake he throws up in the guest bathroom. Yeah, so much to feeling amazing.
After he's taken a shower he has breakfast. As in, a glass of water, because he doesn't feel like his stomach will be okay with anything else.
Plus his eyes are burning. When he heads back to his room, the fairy lights are still there. And as he sits down on the bed her smell is all over the sheets so he lies down on his stomach, closes his eyes and breathes her in. Because he knows the smell will fade. And with time, so will whatever they've had. He's almost sure of that.