Title- I Like The Way You Move.
Characters- Finn/Rachel
Summary-Rachel attends a Football game.
Disclaimer-No, I do not own Glee.
Sequel to my fic 'Rachel Berry Is No Allen Iverson.'
What you missed on NotGlee!- Finn has broken up with Quinn, in part due to discovering the messages she left on Rachel's MySpace. Which in turn led to Finn telling Rachel that he thought she was awesome, amongst other things. This is set a few weeks later.
Rachel Berry watched the field with rapt attention. Wrapped up warm in her long winter coat, gloves, and matching scarf she stared transfixed at the High School football game unfolding in front of her.
It was the first game she had ever attended, football never having interested her before.
To be honest it still didn't interest her now, but one of the players certainly did. Well, two, if you counted Kurt. Or five if you counted Mike, Matt, and Puck also. But who was she kidding? Rachel knew that there was no way in hell she would be freezing her butt off on a Friday night in Lima, falling behind on her MySpace schedule, and missing an AMC showing of 'Meet Me In St Louis' if it wasn't for the presence of one Finn Hudson on the field down below her.
Whilst it was true that Finn had been Quarterback for McKinley High all season long, and Rachel had known him, and even been friends with him, for most of that season, this was still the first game she'd attended. In spite of her friendship with Finn, Rachel had never really even contemplated going until now. But then again she had never been asked until now.
It had happened on the previous Tuesday. Rachel had just finished putting her books into her locker when Finn approached. Shyly he had asked her if she was busy on Friday night. Before she had even formulated an answer Finn had explained that he had a game on Friday night and it would be cool if she came.
"Y'know," he had added "if you've got nothing else on." All this delivered whilst he stared with fascination at his feet. The apparent nonchalant nature of the inquiry was belied by Finn's excited reaction when Rachel had replied that sure she'd love to come. "Really!" Finn had exclaimed smiling broadly, "Great! I think Mercedes goes to games now so you could sit with her or I could, um, introduce you to my Mom and you two could sit together" Finn suggested.
Rachel said that she would talk to Mercedes and see what was happening. It suddenly struck her that maybe this was Finn's tentative first approach to moving their fledgling relationship forward. Dare she hope that this was the first step on the road to her and Finn becoming a couple? Aaargh! Rachel loved Finn (she quite happily could admit this to herself now) but sometimes that boy was so frustrating.
In the 4 weeks since he had taken her breath away by declaring, her, Rachel Berry, awesome, not to mention beautiful, oh and lets not forget brave, she and Finn had spent increasing amounts of time together. Together but not together.
If Rachel had known then that she and Finn would 4 weeks later have spent so much time together but still not be together she would have imagined herself disappointed to put it mildly. But despite still wanting her and Finn to be more, the past 4 weeks had still been by far the best 4 weeks of her life so far.
Rachel had always wanted a friend, sure she'd resigned herself to it pretty much never happening, at least in High School anyways, and it wasn't as if her life was this lonely miserable existence. So okay she had to deal with a certain amount of hostility from the student body, but she had a great relationship with her dads and was always kept busy with glee, dance lessons, singing practice, studies etc. Her life was full and she was mostly content, if not overly happy. Besides looking around her classmates Rachel wondered if maybe friendship was overrated anyway. Especially considering the stuff she'd overhear girls in the bathroom say about other girls, who, as far as Rachel was aware, were ostensibly friends of theirs. Perhaps the reality of most friendships really wasn't what it was cracked up to be.
But 4 weeks of really being friends with Finn soon had Rachel changing her mind. Now that he had broken ties with Quinn and really embraced glee wholeheartedly she got to see a whole new Finn. And boy if she'd been in serious like with Finn 1.0 this new and improved version had her head over heels.
Whether it was the quiet companionship of a shared car ride to school, (they were meant to alternate days but mostly Rachel drove, she had a stricter sense of schedule than Finn whose idea of time could be somewhat flexible in Rachel's opinion.) Or the long intense conversations they would have whilst sitting around the school auditorium post glee rehearsal. Okay so maybe the intensity was mainly on Rachel's side at first. But as the weeks went by and Finn began to realize that Rachel wouldn't belittle or make fun of him when he voiced his opinions he began to open up more and more.
Rachel talked a lot. Okay she was a talker she knew this. But mainly that was because she also knew people weren't really listening to her and if she wanted to be heard, and Rachel knew that she did indeed want to be heard, then she would have to repeat herself more times than was comfortable for both herself and for those being addressed.
Finn, however, listened to her. Really listened to her. Listened to her talk about glee, school, music, films, even art. Listened to her talk about her family, her 2 dads, what she was like as a kid, what she wanted to be like as an adult. Listened and questioned and listened again as if what Rachel had to say was really important to him. He made her feel like he really wanted to know her.
One time when he had been dropping Rachel home from school on one of the increasingly rare occasions when he was designated driver, she had noticed both of her dads cars parked in her driveway and remarked that they were both home for the day. Finn, unprompted, had asked Rachel if it would be okay to meet them, and whether they knew who Finn was.
Knew who Finn was? Rachel questioned herself. They had no choice but know who he was, seeing as Rachel had done little else except rave about him for the last couple of months. The thought put a blush on her cheeks which she prayed Finn hadn't noticed. Both of her dads had previously expressed an interest in meeting Finn. Or as one of her dads put it.
" When are we going to finally meet the boy who's put such a big smile on our angel's face?"
Rachel had held back any such meeting because she knew Finn wasn't always altogether comfortable in formal situations, and a 'meet the parents of the girl your dating but not dating' scenario, had the potential to be very awkward indeed. As it turned out Rachel had been worrying needlessly because from the very first words exchanged- Her other dad looking up, way up, at Finn and inquiring if Finn really attended High School with Rachel and wasn't he maybe actually in college already, to which Finn had chuckled and given that somewhat bashful smile that Rachel would never tire of seeing. Finn had shook both her fathers by the hand and told them that they must be immensely proud of their daughter and must be great parents because Rachel was the most amazing person he'd ever met.
Rachel had felt her cheeks burning at this even as her stomach flip flopped, and she had to use all of her many hours spent practicing emoting in front of the mirror in order to wipe what was sure to be an extremely dopey smile off her face. Judging by the looks on her dads faces she wasn't sure that she had been entirely successful. Luckily it seemed as if Finn had remained oblivious to the effect he was currently having on her. Her dads and Finn had proceeded to get along famously and she was amused to see both her fathers giving her an enthusiastic thumbs up behind Finn's back as he was definitely didn't hurt that they both claimed that Finn had hardly taken his eyes of her the entire time he was in the house and that "the boy was obviously smitten" as they had put it. Rachel protested that they were just friends but she knew she was fooling neither herself or her parents.
So here she was. Watching a High School football game, transfixed. Transfixed by the balletic movement of Finn Hudson. He was poetry in motion as he effortlessly swayed from one direction to another, avoiding a tackle here, vaulting another there, spinning away from a third, cutting back sharply and causing a fourth opponent to miss and loping into a briefly open field until he was brought down by a despairing dive from behind. Judging by the cheers he had done well.
Rachel didn't really know anything about football, and even with Finn Hudson thrown into the mix she didn't much care. But what did concern her was this.
Who knew Finn could move like this?
Rachel considered Finn to be a gifted, if untrained, vocalist. But with the best will in the world, even with love tinted spectacles on, his dancing could only be described as ungainly at best, wooden at worst. But here he was moving fluidly and gracefully whilst wearing football cleats, in 2 inches of mud while being chased by people as tall as him and twice as wide!
Well, as far as Rachel was concerned if he could move like this out there, then he should be able to move just as well during glee routines. She turned to look at Mercedes to glean her reaction to what they had just seen and found her gleemate trying to suppress a chuckle as she took in the look on Rachel's face.
"I know," Mercedes said shaking her head, "he's like a totally different boy!"
"But why?" Rachel queried.
"I asked him that after the first game I saw him do that. He said that in football he doesn't think, he just does it, nothings planned out he's just going on pure instinct and cos he doesn't much like getting hit!" Here Mercedes let out a laugh.
"When he's dancing though he's like, super conscious of every single one of his movements, and which foot is supposed to go where and when. Funny thing is though is that he had no idea that his dancing was that bad, he thought he was doing it right, he practices it enough. As far as positioning he's got all the routines down, there's just no feeling to it."
Mercedes let out a nervous cough and then continued, " I sort of told him he's not really that bad, that I was just a bit surprised that he was able to be so graceful on a boggy field."
At Rachel's glare she exclaimed "Hey, you try looking at that big goofy face and saying something mean to it."
At this Rachel sighed. She knew just what Mercedes meant. If she were honest with herself if anyone other that Finn had been as, well, uncoordinated, in glee then Rachel would have done something to address the issue by now. But she just couldn't bring it to herself to say anything to Finn. Like Mercedes said he was clearly trying his best with the dancing and he did know the choreography. He just wasn't coordinated. At all.
That was before she knew he was capable of moving like this though. This changed everything. There could be no excuses now as far as Rachel was concerned. He quite clearly just needed something, or rather someone Rachel thought to herself, to bring it out of him and Rachel knew just the person.
Meanwhile a flurry of activity on the field had caught Mercedes' attention.
"What's happening?" Rachel asked.
"They're going to try kicking a field goal for the win. There's no time to run any other play." Mercedes replied. Then she started clapping her hands excitedly.
"My boy Kurt's gonna do his thing now!" she exclaimed.
At this Rachel's interest perked up a notch or two. She had heard about Kurt using Beyonce's 'Single Ladies' to prepare to do his kicks and was intrigued to see what the reaction would be when the song played through the PA system.
"Is this when they play 'Single Ladies'?" she inquired.
Mercedes shook her head whilst grinning, "Nope, they put a stop to that. Too many complaints from the other teams. Something about outside interference, or delay of game, or something..," she broke off.
"Anyway," and at this point her grin got even wider "this is way better." Mercedes pointed to the field and Rachel turned her gaze to the sideline with a puzzled expression on her face.
She saw Kurt tug his helmet onto his head, Puck give it a tap down, and then both of them run onto the field where Finn was standing about 7 paces behind the rest of the McKinley team. The whistle was blown and then Rachel heard the unmistakable sound of Finn's voice faintly but clearly carrying up from the field.
"All the single ladies, all the single ladies" he started.
"Now put your hands up!" he continued his voice getting progressively louder as he was soon singing at full volume whilst all the while Kurt performed a very passable imitation of Beyonce's dance before the ball was pitched to Finn, who spun it, planted it on the ground, and held it in place, when with a final hitch of his hips Kurt stutter stepped up to the ball and kicked it straight through the posts.
Cheering broke up all around them and Rachel found herself engulfed in a hug from a beaming Mercedes.
"Our boys won the game!" she exclaimed.
Rachel made her way down to the field with Mercedes where they encountered a somewhat red faced and embarrassed, but happy, Finn, and Kurt who was smilingly accepting a pat on the back from his obviously proud dad.
"Congratulations Finn. But remember, I'm the soloist around here!" Rachel stated with a stern voice, before being unable to keep up the pretense and bursting into giggles.
"Hey, any time you want to take over, feel free" said Finn, ruefully shaking his head.
Rachel got a thoughtful look on her face, "Do you think they'd let me?" she asked.
"No," Finn chuckled "Pretty sure that still counts as outside interference."
"But I go to this school" Rachel huffed "I'm not outside whatever."
"Let it go Rach." Finn laughed.
"Well I don't think it's fair." Rachel finished, although Finn could tell she was only kidding around.
"You were really good Finn. I'm glad you invited me."
"I'm glad you came" Finn replied. "You know, er, seeing as this worked out so well, I was wondering if you'd like to, um, go out again sometime?" Finn asked.
"Wait. Like on a date?" Rachel clarified. Say yes say yes say yes she chanted in her mind.
"Yeah" Finn said. Yes!Yes!Yes!Yes!YES!! Rachel's internal monologue continued.
"So, er, what d'you think?" Finn continued. "Would that be something you'd be interested in?"
"Dating you?" Rachel inquired with a contemplative raising of an eyebrow.
"Yes" Finn huffed out.
"Sure." Rachel said softly with a shy grin that quickly became a fully fledged beaming smile much to Finn's obvious relief and delight.
"Well how about tomorrow night?" asked Finn eagerly.
If possible Rachel's smile got even wider and a gleam that Finn both loved to see, and at the same time was slightly wary of seeing as it often signaled danger ahead, appeared in her eye.
"Tomorrow night sounds great," Rachel answered "and I know the perfect thing."
She paused, and Finn began to wonder just what he had let himself in for.
"We're going dancing!"
The End