Now fully Beta'd, which is a great relief - so thank you TheLongFallOfProse and Tianne for doing that. Please tell me what you think ! R&R
Constructive Criticism is very much appreciated.
Monday
It wasn't as if Kurt Hummel could help it. Half the time, it wasn't as if he wanted to help it. His eyes just had a delicious habit of straying to wherever Finn Hudson was sitting, surveying the respective back, chest or face with a vacant expression - which Mercedes now anticipated and fully understood - for lengthy periods of time. With that inability came the inability to control what was happening inside him, emotionally, as well as the fluttering and squirming and dizziness (but those spells had been growing less frequent over the passing months).
Finn noticed it; and did nothing but smile at the affectation.
―
Finn dumped his backpack on the sofa, as if the effort itself was beyond necessity, huffing his annoyance as he heard his mother's soft humming drifting down the hallway. Just keep your face straight— and he tried, grimacing like a gargoyle until he was confident his skin was loose enough to feign contentment (or any other expression that might be called for).
"Finn, honey, why didn't you remember to—?" she stopped in the lounge doorway, eyeing him carefully up and down with pupils that dilated into their irises the way ink blossomed through fibres of paper, her lips parted in a careful arch. "Finn, what's wrong?" said her motherly concern. Stop sulking and tell me whatever the hell's happened, said her intellect.
Her son was silent for a moment, eyes skirting cautiously to one side, his body rigid, certain that he hadn't been that obvious. But he hadn't needed to be: when you've lived beside someone and watched their every move, you begin to learn how their mind works, how they function; this being something that Finn didn't know or understand, so the denial was obligatory. "What're you talking about? There's nothing wrong."
She folded her arms. Why don't I believe you? etched in every line of her face, and even Finn wasn't stupid enough to miss that. A Just tell me would have shortly followed. But Finn caved, momentarily pondering over how easy it would be to let the words slip from his mouth and perceive her reaction, knowing that he was only putting off the inevitable.
"Okay, so it's nothing you need to worry about." He folded his arms across his chest, and his mother didn't miss the defensive stature—she just chose to bombard straight through. Her battalion shaped by years of experience galloped fiercely behind her, and her son's petty armour of counteractions didn't stand a chance.
"Tell me anyway," her statement was mandatory, no thought needed and no practice to ensure that it sounded right.
Gradually, her eyes began to penetrate her son's procrastination and he spoke, "Me and Rachel have hit a rocky patch."
No eye contact; only the sheer dearth of ripeness was allowed to tell his immaturity. But Carole understood, because she'd been there. Seeing that her son was in need of some reassurance or at least some sugar-coated truths, not the tonnes of derogatory 'you're not old enough to hit a rocky patch' statements she could have spewed into her son's already reluctant ears. She perched on the arm of Burt's sofa instead, clasping her hands on her lap. Beautiful concern played in her eyes, her mouth, her brow. She had a whole lifetime to play lecturer, so today she assumed psychiatrist.
"She avoids seeing me. She barely talks to me unless we have a Glee club assignment. Like, it was all fine at first, she wouldn't leave me alone. And, it was great. But now, she just doesn't seem interested. She's started following Puck around, like she's trying to get him back," Finn rambled, again, incessantly amused by how easy the words were coming to him. Fingers flickered beside him at the mention of his former best friend.
"Have you done anything to push her away?" she ventured, knowing that this may be a gamble too far. A trickling of anger rose in Finn's throat at the suggestion that this could be in any way his fault. He'd been nothing but kind to her, he'd done exactly what she'd wanted. Surely?
"No!" he half yelled, but his hesitation might have cost him, voice sizing his mother up for her coffin. "I always made sure she came first! You can ask Kurt, he's nearly always there..." he trailed off, remembering the expression he'd seen the previous day, Rachel's usually angelic face contorting when Kurt had shown him the new designs for their bathroom, because the bathroom had been so important. Kurt was always trying, perhaps too hard, to win Finn over; this being something he was growing increasingly wary of. Not that he hated it, not that it drove him crazy, not that he wanted it to stop, especially with Rachel's distance, and it was nice to have someone show an interest; even if Kurt's 'interest' was bordering on obsession.
"Okay. Well, if you're sure," she played with the laced hem of her blouse, looking downwards before continuing, "Do you think she's bored?"
A hand emerged in defence as she saw her son's outrage, his own hand going up to protest his innocence, "I'm just saying—!" she paused, letting him know she was serious in the nicest way possible, "—that you're both young, and relationships like the one you're expecting don't come easily to teenagers. You're all so fickle." As a mother, she had a right to set her son in place, to let him know that being a teenager was not like being an adult. Finn was silent, never reading into anything his mother said because he lacked the emotional capacity–Carole's point exactly.
"Do you feel your attention wandering?" She asked, watching her son's brow furrow as he considered it—"I don't understand," he muttered, although he understood perfectly well. He was just biding his time, waiting for his mom to say something to which he could explode again. Any release of anger, confusion and frustration was duly welcomed.
"Do you look at other girls?"
"No!" Finn's voice was loud and cracking again, breaking through its own parameters because he didn't feel she understood. "What–? Why would you–? How–! I'm your son, don't you think–?" Garbage, and he knew it. "No."
"I'm just saying." That was all she could do.
"Well, don't!" He heaved his bag back onto his shoulder, glaring the floor into next week, but his mom's voice caught his attention like a fish on a line before he got the chance to try one of Rachel's storm-outs.
"Finn. Honey, I want you to think about this–and I appreciate that you probably don't want to, but maybe Rachel losing interest in you is killing your interest in her. It is so much harder to love someone who doesn't love you back." She left the inverse to be sought out by her son, in his own time. The time he definitely didn't need, because, from her philosophical endeavour to broaden her son's perceptions, he immediately understood that what she'd really meant was that it is so much easier to love someone who loves you in return. He knew she just wanted him to find that someone, and so he had to pray that he could craft that someone from the Rachel that was increasingly present. Maybe he could just flick back a few pages and find the Rachel who'd made him those matching calendars and crept inside his head without permission. He'd prefer the airplane-talker-Rachel to the one who rarely ever spoke. To him, at least.
Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up! was screaming over any other thoughts, when his rationality inevitably evaded him, as words tended to do inside peoples' heads—you could be having a relatively peaceful, comprehensive conversation with a sensible part of your brain, whilst another was hurling abuse at you for ignoring the other half of your conscience. Yelling 'why did everyone have to stick their nose in? Maybe he should just learn not to confide in people about these things...
He sulked his way into the kitchen, flinging open the refrigerator door with the apathy he'd utilised to abuse his bag and snatching up a milk carton. The smell of some weird salad stuff hit him full on in the face, causing him to wrinkle his nose in disgust. How anyone could possibly eat that sort of thing evaded him, even though he knew Kurt did. He tried to understand Kurt. Needless to say, he hated salad dressing, especially that French one.
Kicking the door shut as he walked over to the cupboard, there was one question that was on his mind, and it was itchy and inflamed: why doesn't Rachel love me like she used to? He then reminded himself he was supposed to stop asking himself the meaningful questions; they hurt his brain, and he had enough stress at the moment. Maybe he should just let them drift apart...?
No. Apart meant alone; Finn really didn't want to be alone.
He spent the next half hour drowning his sorrows in a glass of milk, half praying that Kurt would leave whatever bathroom design project and intricately detailed interior sketches he had going on downstairs to come and comfort him. Kurt was good at that, although he had a strangely fascinating way of doing it—insulting him, only disguising it as compliments.
Finn smiled at the thought, 'I admire your versatility, Finn, it's amazing that you can both think about food and eat it,' Kurt said after Finn had spent nearly a whole morning debating over a Mars bar or a Mars bar ice-cream. Kurt had snatched the ice-cream off of him and shut it back in the freezer, so the decision was made, claiming that it was the last one and his dad would want to eat it whilst he was watching the basketball later. Finn had eaten the chocolate and tried desperately not to let it smear around his lips, receiving several disgusted, disapproving why-do-you-put-so-much-junk-in-your-body glares from Kurt, but then at about half six in the evening Kurt had driven off with no explanation only to come back a quarter of an hour later with a new pack of the tasty ice treats claiming that it was because Finn was acting out-of-sorts and needed a pick-me-up. So, naturally, that night's pig-out was Kurt's fault. But then, that had been the day he'd first noticed something was up between him and Rachel; he reckoned Kurt had guessed that that was the something that was up. The gesture had been nice, sure, but there were so many undertones—what with Kurt harbouring some sort of forbidden love for him. But Finn didn't get so creeped out by that anymore; in fact, he kind of liked the interest now that it was more sort of, Finn, can I help you with that? or Finn, you should buy a new t-shirt, that one's positively atrocious, instead of, I honestly love you, because that had screwed with his mind.
Eyes glued to the banister visible through the doorway, it was as if he was trying to summon Kurt and his undivided attention up from where he sat without so much as moving a vocal cord. Occasionally, he thought he heard Kurt humming and his heart fluttered with excitement, but that was nothing new.
The melody of Kurt's voice was caramel when he heard it, perfectly soft, warm and forever sweet. Sometimes, it was the only thing he thought he'd ever need to hear: it could sing so high, so low and so wonderfully; it could talk with words that Finn didn't understand and didn't even want to understand; and it sounded like silk compared to Rachel's, which sometimes seemed to scratch. Although, that could be because he really didn't want to listen to her right now.
Why was his mother so insensitive? That's what he wanted to know. Why had she suggested something so bizarre?—or maybe Finn just hadn't been expecting it. Maybe he should listen. Maybe finding someone who properly loved him in return would make him happy, and then the whole thing with Rachel would be over as well.
Rachel. He did think he really loved her, like full-body, full-heart, full-whatever-else-there-was-to-love-with—so was it really that easy to give her up, with nothing more than a snap mental decision? Probably not, things rarely were–he learned that from Puck and Quinn.
―
Later that night, he tottered down the clinically white stairs that lead to his room with very little conscious thought going into what he was actually doing. One foot in front of the other. His mother's words were sparking some meaning in his brain, but he seemed to lack the aptitude to truly decipher it. Like a Spanish lesson with Mr Shue. This only seemed to hurt his heart more than his head. Did he really want to lose Rachel again? But was it really keeping her if she was this distant? He didn't know the answer to either. Truthfully, the idea of knowing the answers was scarier than being oblivious. He liked to consider decisions, not make them.
"I decided on Alice in Wonderland tonight."
The shrill, captivating voice of his would-be brother brought his thoughts to something trivial. Pleasantly. He couldn't help but notice how that spark of meaning seemed to flicker in his chest, slightly muffled by the sheer amount of joy that seeped through him upon seeing the boy. If someone painted what wonderful would look like, it would definitely end up being Kurt's portrait.
"What?" he replied, keeping his eyes on Kurt's face and the smirk that appeared there, appointed by the ignorance.
"It's Monday; don't tell me you forgot that too?" A hand went to a hip, a smile so thin and wide and radiant bloomed, and Finn embarked on the gradual training course that would eventually teach him how to forget his problems.
"'Too?' What else did I forget?" he asked, stringing out the conversation as long as possible so he could hear that voice and not understand why it felt so good in his ears, so he could watch the unspoiled cerise blush that splayed under those cheekbones and see the way those eyelids occasionally flicker, and the way a lock of hair always looked ready to fall over steaming green eyes but never quite found the courage to.
"You were supposed to pick up Carole's dry cleaning," Kurt sighed, his head titling to the side in a way that most would associate with an older brother looking down at his younger. "In the future, I'd really appreciate it if you remembered, because, A, even my brain can't handle the sheer incomprehensibility of another of my dad's texts, and B, the man behind the counter has creepy shrimp-eyes. That and he keeps winking. D'you know, last Tuesday, when I went to pick up my Golden embroidered jacket, he actually asked me if I was interested in his daughter's red stilettos—because she doesn't think she's woman enough for them! Can you actually believe that? Either he has a hideous misconception about the difference between a gay man and a woman, or he genuinely thought I was a woman. I can't deal with that..." Kurt's eyes became sharp and focused, forehead wrinkling as he tried to distinguish between Finn's 'confused and nonchalant' face, and his 'sad' face.
"Finn, what's up?" he finally asked, his chin tilting upwards, eyebrows knitted together; and almost instantly his face went from anger, hurt and embarrassment (with a touch of sarcastic humour) to unparalleled empathy, or at least, the desire to be empathetic and unparalleled.
Finn didn't seem to be able to concentrate long enough to answer at first. A sizzle of something danced in his chest, something he didn't recognise yet he also did, as if his own emotions were weaving an incomprehensible riddle all of their own. Then again Finn never thought in that many words, and to him it was more, why is my chest hurting?
"Uh. Oh, nothing. I'm fine."
Lying to Kurt had become as natural as food digestion; half the time he wasn't aware it was happening. Finn never liked to talk about his feelings unless he felt truly comfortable using dude to begin the conversation, and Kurt's small, angularly circular face and his impeccable hair and tight, resonating voice failed to suit the word. It was something Finn was not the only one to have picked up on; Coach Sylvester still insisted on calling him 'Ladyface,' and everyone else bar Mercedes, Finn and other Glee Clubbers resolved to refer to him as something meaning the same as, if not actually, 'Queer.'
"It's Rachel isn't it?"
Finn blinked, determining whether or not that had been weird. "Woah," Finn said, his eyes widening and nervously flicking to the wall. He remembered these mind tricks from Rachel. "What made you think that–? How–? How did you know–?" he stumbled, nearly all at once.
"Your facial expressions and thought processes aren't exactly enigmatic," Kurt sighed, raising an eyebrow and for a moment turning away. Finn couldn't tell why. Shame? Drawn out longing?
"Well. That's great. I don't know what enigfatic means, but sure, whatever."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
And there it was again. The movement of a hand to aid a delicate perch on the end of a bed that screamed ulterior motive, and suddenly Finn was uneasy, his breathing irregular as he recognised the situation; he recognised the very position from the week with the Ballads, with the sonogram. Kurt's perseverance in a crush that was never going to amount to anything was ineffectual, but still he tried. The notion rankled with Finn's nerves, sending his stomach and mind to jelly—only to be replaced by the most skin-crawling certainty: Kurt loved him even when he wasn't loved in return.
Wait. What did that mean? His mind was suddenly buzzing, the meaning dancing the Waltz and then the Foxtrot, and finally the Rhumba. And why was someone throwing confetti? The confetti seemed to flutter above his ambiguity, twirling in a formation that spelled a question. Did that mean that it should be easier for Finn to love Kurt than it should be for him to love Rachel? Gliding into it further, was his mom's hypothesis dependent on sexuality? Whatever, Kurt's intense gaze had begun to burn different circles into his skin. They felt different. They felt a hell a lot more acceptable, even more acceptable than the acceptable he'd felt at the kitchen table, and like being trapped in a suit full of water, someone unzipped the front and let him step out. The spark of meaning blossomed into a fire that evaporated any of the remaining droplets. And that was it. As quickly as that, Finn had realised how fickle teenagers really were, and how Rachel was no longer everything.
But Kurt was a guy!
Surely he was just clutching at straws, but the sizzle in his stomach didn't feel like pre-diarrhoea or impending vomit. It felt like the happiness he felt when he thought of Rachel, back when she still enjoyed engaging in his conversation about pizzas and the best places to buy X-box games. Really, he thought, Puck was the best one to talk to about that kind of stuff. He knew how to appreciate it. Rachel just kept trying to relate it back to some weird stage show, like Spring Awakening—needless to say, her links were tenuous. Usually based purely on the fact that one of the said games might have Zombies in it, and 'awakening' sort of meant a similar thing. Finn never understood that part of Rachel, the part that was so insistent on being smothered by nothing other than herself. He understood the other parts, but never that one.
Kurt, on the other hand, thought about himself, but Finn could see his reasoning: skincare to keep his skin nice and soft, a new wardrobe to make sure he looked cool, and Kurt really did, although, at the same time, Kurt always had time for other people. Especially Mercedes, and that made Finn jealous. Jealousy was something he always felt with Rachel, the way she tended to look at Puck, and when she had been with Jesse.
This was either Finn's brain addressing every little humbug that buzzed around his head one by one, or he was trying to make a connection between his relationship with Rachel and his relationship with Kurt. As if his brain wanted him to go for it with Kurt, to just try it. Go on, it said; it'll be just like with Rachel—not that every part of him wanted that. Puck doesn't need to know, and neither does Rachel, nor does Santana, or Mercedes... oh, crap. Finn couldn't keep secrets.
Besides... Kurt was a guy. Finn was straight. That made them instantly incompatible, right? Or was God suddenly a huge fan of Bromance?
Maybe it would be better if he considered the prospect he was vaguely suggesting, just as he liked to consider decisions. So he blinked trustingly before closing his eyes, watching the vision of an increasingly confused-looking Kurt disappear until he was submerged by darkness. But he wasn't, he was in the same place, with the same white-grey walls, with the same bed, with the same stunning quietness, and Kurt was there, only he was smiling and radiant and looking really nice and everything. And then Finn was leaning in, his eyes closing for the second time, with nothing more than a simmer of adrenaline, and he was so close to Kurt's lips. In his mind he couldn't feel the warmth of the breath he knew would be there, stuttered and disjointed— an evidence of the theory he would be acting on—and then the skin, soft, he would imagine—
"Finn?"
"—Hmm?" his eyes flashed open, presently caught off-guard by the oh-my-god-what-the-hell-are-you-doing glare that was on Kurt's face after watching his crush close his eyes sleepily in mid-conversation. Obviously torn between taking offence and calling the doctor, he leaned closer. Finn had the feeling he was checking for dilated pupils.
"You had your eyes closed. Why was that?" Kurt uttered, and the proximity of his face to Finn's made the latter feel perturbed—or was it, rather, that it should be making him feel perturbed, because he was supposed to fancy the guy. Maybe...
He looked at the unusually triangular nose, and the perfectly, almost stiffly symmetrical lips and those piercing pale eyes that just seemed all warm and lovely, and thought that maybe, just maybe, Kurt was kind of pretty.
"Oh. I—I'm just tired," he fake-yawned, tapping his mouth thrice and then dropping the hand limply to his side again. From where Kurt was sitting, staring up at him so keenly, and with him standing, not knowing if he was unable to move or if he just didn't want to, he felt as though he was being interrogated; assessed.
"Do you want to skip the movie?" the smaller, sitting boy blinked, glancing over to the television briefly, and then rearranging his hands.
"No. No. The movie is good, I know how much you like Johnny Depp," Finn's stomach twisted as he feigned a smile, but he didn't know why.
Kurt nodded and found some sort of ease after the terrible mention of Rachel's name, and he, too, managed a half-hearted grin and went about setting up the film, assuming a seat next to Finn on the couch within a few minutes. Finn peered out of the corner of his eye and took in the little frame of a boy that was curled up beside him, who sighed when a certain actor's name popped up in the opening credits.
Kurt had been good to him. Really good. He'd been there. He'd forgiven. He'd tried his hardest to be nothing but nice. Even in the blanket/privacy partition incident, Finn internally shrivelled when he recalled it, finding his actions more uncouth with every recollection. He tried to stick up for him (if he ignored the post-trauma disdain). He determined within the hour that that was more than he'd deserved.
―
Finn curled the duvet under his toes and tried to listen to Kurt's heavy yet even, calming breathing as if it were a lullaby. He liked to sit and listen to Kurt sleep, never understanding why people liked to watch people sleep, because hearing someone sleep was so much more peaceful. Repetitive and level, it was very often that Kurt's deep breaths would lead him delicately, with an almost invisible transition, into his own slumber.
But tonight, he couldn't concentrate. Tonight, his mind was plagued by the words of his mother; a fear that he may be thinking too much into what she had said, a fear that he may do something he will regret. Conversely, he equally mused that anything with Kurt could not be a mistake. Like he thought earlier, Kurt had only ever been good to him. But did that mean he would be good for him? Who knows? Finn certainly didn't. But he wished he did.
With an absence of any distinguished monotony, Finn surrendered to the perpetual repetition of the three main sections of his very own emotional Venn diagram. There was Kurt in one shape. There was Rachel. Then there was doubt in the centre.
Thanks x - please R&R