Disclaimer: I do not own glee nor any of the characters.
just one touch and i was a believer
chapter one: when the sky is gray
Everything seemed like it was falling into place for him. He had a great life, great friends, a girl that he loved and a job that he actually enjoyed. It was a rarity in New York probably, to be that lucky to find all of that. Everyone struggled with keeping their life's together while going at the speed of lightning that was New York. He thought that he didn't have to do that, all the struggling. That he had found some kind of peace so he could settle down and be happy.
If Finn was meant to have the life he had dreamt of, then why was he sitting on the front steps of his apartment in Manhattan, holding the ring he had given her about four months ago. She had left him, he knew that. He wasn't stupid. She had left a note that almost only contained the word 'sorry', along with the sentence 'I'm leaving you', for god's sake.
He hadn't seen it coming, though he probably should have. It was often she had come home late for the past two months or so, he wasn't really sure. And she blamed her work of course, ("My new working schedule is not something I can do anything about, Finn. Just be happy that I got promoted."). And he was happy for her, the promotion she had gotten really gave them a kick when it came to bills and stuff. They lived in Manhattan after all. Still, he had a nagging feeling in the back of his head, something that told him that she was lying. He thought that it was kind of a weird schedule that the magazine company she worked for came up with, since she often came home after 11pm. It's not like it's a long way home, especially not when taking a cab home, which he had seen her doing multiple times.
He also probably should have noticed when she came home one night, that time later than usual without wearing a bra, (no, he's not a perv. She was his fiancée, he had the rights to look at her boobs!). He thought about it for a minute or two, before letting it go and closed his eyes to the fact that Quinn probably was cheating on him with some turd.
After another month of her arriving home late because of 'work' had passed, he came home one day to an empty apartment. Of course, he expected it to be empty, he never worked overly long days since he was an art teacher. He toed off his shoes and put his bag down on the dark tile floor. He snuck a glance at the watch that was wrapped around his right wrist and figured that Quinn wouldn't be home in another four hours at least. He decided to make himself some dinner as his stomach grumbled angrily.
And that's when he noticed.
The slight sparkle that came from the kitchen counter. He froze for a second, hoping that his eyes were fooling him. But he knew that what he saw was absolute truth. He took a few shaky steps forward and reached out for the ring that was lying on top of a small paper note. He looked at the small piece of jewelry that was glued between his index and middle finger. He felt pressure behind his eye globes, but he wouldn't let the tears fall. Not yet.
He put the ring in safety in the pocket of his shorts and grabbed the note. He couldn't go on without noticing that her letters were shaky and the paper was slightly moist, which must have been the effects of her crying. And that she wrote this recently.
He read through the note at least fifteen times, just to ensure that he hadn't read it all wrong. He could have read it another fifteen times but it would still say the same thing. That she didn't want to be in his life anymore, and she didn't want him to intrude in hers. Well, at least she didn't come with the 'hey, we can still be friends right?' crap. That would have stung, especially if she had left a note with those words. She was straight forward and he was glad that she didn't want to see him, because he wanted the exact same thing.
Suddenly he just felt the need to get out of the apartment. The air was getting heavier, like it was closing up around his throat and slowly suffocated him. He rushed out of the kitchen and put on the first pair of shoes that he could reach. His vision was blurry and the pressure behind his eyes was getting harder and harder not to let go of.
He thanked someone, or something, (if God existed he would never have allowed this to happen, right?) that he lived on the second of six floors. That way he wouldn't have to run down so many stairs.
When he came outside to the fresh air (as fresh as the air in New York was, anyway,) he took a deep breath and the tears underneath his closed eyelids finally started to melt and flow freely down his cheeks. He stuffed his hand down into his pocket and fished up the ring that should sit on her finger right now, marking her that she was his. But it wasn't, and just the thought of Quinn being with someone else just broke his heart. His knees weakened underneath him, so he sat down on the cold, hard stone step. Even though the clock neared seven thirty, the streets were still filled with people and cars, but he couldn't see nor hear them. All he could hear was his pounding heartbeat and how his thoughts seemed to scream things to him that he couldn't really understand.
He fiddled around with the ring and wondered what he was going to do now? How was he going to tell his mom the news? She had been so exited when he had told her that he was getting married to Quinn, and she was happy for him that he had found his soul mate. Yeah, soul mate his ass.
Maybe he should just start over and become like one of those hippie-dudes with no worries at all. Even though he would probably look totally awkward in those clothes. Nah, probably not.
He felt a little better when his best friend, Puck, came over to his place after he had missed band practice that evening. Finn hadn't realized that he had been sitting on the cold steps in over an hour. Puck had a concerned expression written across his face, and he sat down beside Finn.
Puck had been Finn's best friend since they met at kindergarten when they were five. Finn had been the shy little kid with not a lot to say and preferred to hang out with the kindergarten teacher rather than making friends. Puck was the exact opposite of Finn. He was the well known bad boy, even though he was so young. He would always say inappropriate things to both teachers and the other kids, but he was often kind of nice to Finn. When Puck asked Finn one day to go playing with him, Finn wondered if he should say yes. He's glad he did though, since Puck became his best friend. Even after they graduated from high school they stayed together and moved from small town Lima in Ohio to New York with a couple of other friends.
When it came to dating, Puck had never really tried. It's not that he couldn't find a date, no. Puck always slept around with different girls, he still did for the record. His obsession with girls was conceived when they were in first grade. Back then he would just be mean to them, like pulling their hair or stealing their pencils. When their high school years began and he knew about the new great thing, sex, he started sleeping around with the cheerleaders at their school. And you may think that he would get tired of it after a while and just find another hobby, but no. Puck liked his lifestyle.
Finn on the other hand was a little more abstinent. While Puck was out sleeping with different girls, Finn only had eyes for one girl. Her name was Quinn Fabray. She was everything and anything to him. She was what every guy could ever wish for. Smart, funny, beautiful, the whole package. Sure, she could be a little icy from time to time but he didn't really care back then. He loved her.
They dated for their whole high school career, and he had the best time in high school. He was the Quarterback of their school's football team and she was the head cheerleader. It was a cliché (that's the word right? He's never been good with words) he knew that. But that didn't stop them from being as happy as they could.
She followed him to New York when high school was over and they both went to NYU, Finn majoring in art education and Quinn in journalism. They lived in dorms for their first year, but decided to rent a small apartment not far from their school sophomore year. With Quinn working part time at a small diner nearby and Finn scoring some random painting jobs here and there they got by pretty well under the circumstances.
After a whole lot of studying and hard work (and parties,) he got his college degree and he could search for a good paying job. It went...well. At least for Quinn. After just a couple of weeks she announced that she had been employed at the New York Times. Finn was glad. If any of the job interviews he had been to have been successful and he actually got a job, they could finally rent a decent apartment instead of the tiny shithole they were currently living in.
He didn't get a job until late September, which was a couple of months after he had graduated. It was a decent paying job at an elementary school about half an hour outside of Manhattan, and he was happy that he and Quinn could finally move.
So they moved, to a nice apartment that was close to both of their jobs in Manhattan. It wasn't fancy but rats weren't frequently running around on the floor either like in their old apartment. Finn felt that he could finally exhale. He was home.
Finn decided to propose to Quinn on Christmas Eve. Christmas had always been his favorite holiday ever since he was a kid. The tree, and the family, and drinking hot chocolate, and walking around in your PJ's all day. It was just so cozy. So he couldn't think of a better time to pop the question.
She had said yes, of course. He knew she would. She loved him, that was clear as the day. Not enough though.
Puck and Finn didn't say anything from where they sat on the stairs and Finn appreciated the silence at the moment. It would probably hurt too much to talk about her, since it broke his heart just to think. But he could see in Puck's face that he almost craved answers to his unspoken questions.
They sat there for another twenty minutes, maybe. He wasn't really sure. Every minute felt like an hour. But Finn opened his mouth, feeling that he had to say something. It was time.
"Can we go upstairs to talk? It's getting cold out here."
The words were dry and quiet, and they scraped through his mouth like nails on a blackboard but it felt good to finally say something. Break the ice, you know. Puck nodded and stood up, and stretched out a helping hand for Finn to take. Finn gave his friend a small smile and took it so he could easily get off the cold ground.
They slowly returned to Finn's (and Quinn's, sort of,) apartment and Puck said a sudden comment about how he's wearing winter boots when it was early May. Finn rolled his eyes, but appreciated his effort to make him happier.
When they entered the apartment Finn went straight into the kitchen without even bothering to take off his boots. It wasn't really necessary anyway. He just needed coffee. He asked Puck if he wanted some too, but he declined and claimed that he needed to keep his teeth as white as possible. Girls like when guys have pearly whites. Finn couldn't help but roll his eyes this time too.
After making his coffee, Finn sat down with Puck in the living room and told him the whole story about how he had suspected that Quinn was cheating on him a couple of months back and how it turned out to be true. When he had told half of the story he couldn't keep the tears away and they fell gently down into his lap in light streams. Even Puck, who was the most badass person he knew, looked sad when Finn finished his story. He patted Finn on the back and told him to give everything some time and it would all fall into place eventually. Finn nodded, but had a hard time believing that he would ever be the same again.
Puck left a little bit over 11pm and Finn didn't like to be lonely in the apartment. It suddenly felt a little scary knowing that he was all alone. Maybe going to bed would help, both his pounding headache and his loneliness.
He didn't have the energy to take a shower, but he brushed his teeth. Hygiene is important, kind of. After he had stripped down to his boxers and put his boots back in the hall, he was ready for bed and he decided to get a glass of water, his mouth was feeling like a desert even after brushing his teeth.
So he stumbled out into the dark kitchen and he kind of regretted not to turn on the lights before. He had never been such a smooth guy, so tip-toeing around in a dark kitchen is almost a death sentence to him. Or at least a trip to the hospital sentence.
He opened one of the cupboards over the gray marble counter tops and grabbed a plastic cup with a giraffe on it that he hadn't used in ages. Quinn never liked them and she always said that only little kids with a very low sense of humor could ever drink from those cups. Finn couldn't help but feel a little bit hurt when she said that, because they had always been his favorite ever since Kurt gave them to him at Christmas a few years ago. Quinn must have had a low sense of humor, because who couldn't love a giraffe or an elephant with giant eyes and head and a tiny body? It was freaking adorable.
Finn ended up having a glass of grape soda instead of water. He just didn't feel like being healthy at the time. Besides, Quinn never let him drink soda, with the exception of Fridays. Now when he thought about it he realized what a boring person Quinn really was. How could he never have seen that before?
He was halfway through his glass of soda when he saw the shooting star outside the kitchen windows. It was the brightest one he had ever seen. He closed his eyes for a moment and he made a wish, because you're supposed to make a wish when you see a shooting star, right. His only wish was to make his feelings for Quinn go away. They just made his heart ache.
He was just about to return to his bedroom, his glass of soda still in his grip when something strange happened. Like really strange. The ground suddenly started to shake with an enormous force and his windows facing the small park just outside his apartment building were covered in brown dirt dust. His glass had fallen to the floor (thank god it was made out of plastic,) and his feet were covered in sticky soda but he didn't really care. Once again he put on his winter boots and rushed out the door, just like he had done all those hours ago. Only this time he wasn't feeling like his world had just crashed down and crushed him.
The air outside was surprisingly warm and there was not a person in sight. That was kinda weird. It was after 11:30pm, sure but there had to be someone who must have heard the crash right? For some reason he stood there looking like a complete idiot just to think that through for a minute. He was impossibly slow sometimes. He soon figured out that he actually looked like a dork standing there staring into nothing so he kicked his engines to full speed and sprinted to the park, which probably wasn't his best choice since he could barely breathe when he arrived.
After spending several minutes panting with his hands on his knees (he hadn't been sleeping since six o'clock in the morning so he wasn't in his happy place when it came to running at the time), he lifted his head to meet a marvelous sight. Right in the middle of the park was a giant crater. Not what he had expected to be honest. He was also very surprised that he was the only one there.
He stepped closer to get a better look at it, because he'd never seen a crater before. He was raised in Lima after all, the town where nothing happens. He could swear that he was hearing a sound. A quiet sound that was very alike coughs. He was standing on the very edge of the crater, which was very deep actually, and looked down. What he saw shocked him. Because in the middle of the crater stood a girl in only a thin sheet of a light blue silk-looking material around her body. Her skin was olive colored and her hair brown and flowing. She was small, very small with plump red lips and a nose that was on the larger side. She was looking down to cough, so he couldn't see her eyes but he just felt that they would be just as deep and beautiful like a clear night sky.
He was right. Because that was the moment she looked up at him. Her eyes were dark chocolate brown and he could swear that he could see her soul in those eyes. They had a special sparkle to them, almost like stars were planted in them. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He was too stunned by the beauty in front of him.
She smiled at him, her teeth bright white in the moonlight. When she spoke to him, he could swear that she had the voice of an angel.
"Hello. Who are you?"