Title: Official Bear Count: Three
Pairing: Finn/Rachel
Rating: R
Author's Note: Written for the Gleefics Hot Summer Nights Fic Exchange. My original prompter bailed out, so I gave up that story (which was bad anyway, I'll admit) and wrote this instead, as a gift to the community at large. This takes place during college years, and (as usual) fits in with my NYC future!fic series. I can't seem to write anything else! ;)
Parts of this really happened in my life. See footnotes for explanation. ;) Also - and I think this is pretty obvious - I'm afraid of bears. LOL.
He's almost asleep, his head lolling against the window, when he feels her hand on his and her frantic voice beside him.
"Finn! Did you remember to pack more than one pair of shoes in case your sneakers get muddy? And do you have a sweatshirt for the evenings? It always gets cool by the lake." She shakes her head and frowns. "Oh, I can't believe I forgot to check your bag before we left…"
It's hard to resist the urge to roll his eyes as he looks left and puts up his palm to stop her. "My mom and Kurt both insisted on helping me pack." Now he really does roll his eyes. "Like I can't fold a t-shirt on my own? He made me roll everything up, so it wouldn't get wrinkled." He finishes with a noise of mingled disbelief and annoyance.
Rachel relaxes against the seat once more, obviously placated by this news.
"He's not wrong."
A half smile and a soft snort of laughter - "I'm sure."
Moments pass, and his head finds the window once more. Again, just before he falls asleep, he feels her hand on his as she threads her fingers through his own, and this time when she speaks, her voice is soft and calm.
"This is going to be a great trip."
He doesn't even open his eyes – just smiles and nods. "Yeah."
Neither of them notice her dads in the front seat as they exchange a grin.
Even after four years, he's never been along on the Berry family trip to the lake until now.
There was football camp, college orientation, more football camp, and a vacation with his own family – every year, something kept him from going along. This year, with no obligations in sight, he finds himself on the way to the lake with Rachel and her dads, not quite relishing the six-hour ride but not at all minding the feeling of her head against his shoulder as she sleeps.
Pastoral Ohio zips by at eighty miles per hour, turning into pastoral Pennsylvania and continuing on. It's beautiful, and he's excited for the trip. Six days at what Rachel has described as "the prettiest place you can imagine," with canoes and cabins and campfires and all manner of wildlife; fishing and swimming, hiking and four-wheeling ("I've never done that," she'd sniffed, as though she couldn't fathom ever having the desire to do so).
It all sounds awesome to him, but he thinks of their immaculate house, with the piano and the antiques and the framed photos of a spoiled but beloved child, and the thought of roughing it is so un-Rachel, so un-Berry, he's anticipating seeing her in this atmosphere more than anything else. As it is, she sits beside him in shorts and a tank top and (of all things) a pair of flip-flops – it's like he's entered another dimension.
Yeah, this is definitely going to be a unique experience.
(He can't wait to go four-wheeling.)
The terrain becomes wilder, the altitude higher, and his ears pop painfully in the middle of Rachel's dads' rendition of "I Got You, Babe". The radio station they're singing along with grows progressively more staticky the higher they climb.
The highway suddenly curves to reveal a breathtaking valley below, the carpet of green sloping back up to a distant, hazy horizon. It's amazing.
There's an "Almost there!" from the front seat, and Finn turns to see Rachel beaming at him. It's easy to return her smile when everything, everything is so beautiful from where he's sitting.
Two miles down the winding mountain road to the cabin, a black bear emerges from the woods and ambles across the graveled roadway as they skid to a stop. His heart pounds in his chest and he reaches absurdly toward the door to be sure it's locked. (Could bears open doors? He isn't taking chances.)
Since it includes a four-letter word, he stifles the first phrase that comes to mind, but Rachel is the next to speak, anyway.
"First bear of the year!" She squeezes his hand, oblivious to the terror in his eyes. "You can keep count this year, Finn. Last time we were here, we broke the record at five!"
He laughs weakly. "Um…one."
The cabin is, to say the least, surprising.
Finn had pictured a structure along the lines of a glorified shack, maybe one with a porch (isn't that what cabins looked like in the movies?), but he realizes as soon as they drive up that he was very mistaken. This is beautiful, all hardwood and plush fabrics and rustic luxury. There are two bathrooms, two bedrooms, a big kitchen with woodsy heart-of-pine cabinets, and a better entertainment system set up in the living room than he has at home. This is so not "roughing it".
"Let me show you our room!" Rachel bounds past him, duffel bag on her shoulder, to a small bedroom with a bunk bed along one wall. "Ta-da!"
Arms outstretched, she pirouettes in place, the joy of being in this summer retreat evident in her expression. He throws his bag absently on the bed and returns her smile.
"Bunk beds, huh?"
And something in her eyes changes. Her voice is considerably softer when she replies, "My dads chose it when I was little, so I could...bring a friend along on this trip."
The next sentence remains unspoken, but he knows without hearing it - no one has ever slept in that second bunk.
Oh, the urge to hug her is overwhelming. (The urge to lean down and kiss her is pretty strong, too.)
They break apart quickly when one of Rachel's dads, carrying a large cooler of drinks and snacks, peeks in and raises an eyebrow. "Door open at all times, remember."
"Yes, Daddy."
She shakes her head when he leaves, but the smile returns to her face as she unzips her bag and begins to shake out her clothes to hang them up in the closet.
He follows suit, though his rolled-up shirts are shoved haphazardly into the top dresser drawer instead.
"Now, of course we spoke earlier about who would be here, but to avoid potentially awkward introductions, I'll refresh your memory."
Yeah, she'd told him last week about the dozens of people who were going to be staying in the adjacent cabins - friends of her dads, extended families, babies and children and teenagers and other college students. He's sure it's going to be great, but he's also sure she's right about the awkward introductions. He hasn't been coming here for two decades.
"Papa's best friend in high school will be here - his name is Ted, and his wife is Julia. They have a daughter, Katie, who's a little older than we are. She and I have always enjoyed a very amicable relationship, though she places far more value on sports than the arts, which is unfortunate, because her vocal talent is at the very least passable."
He raises an eyebrow at this.
"We sing around the campfire, Finn! Charlie always brings his guitar along. He tends to play a lot of John Denver, but I did persuade him to do several eighties stadium rock anthems last summer - in honor of you, of course."
He laughs, not knowing who the hell Charlie is and quite sure he wouldn't remember even if she told him. He sounds cool, though.
She starts again. "So then in the next cabin, there's Spencer and Kelly, and they have Ella, she's just a baby..."
He tries to listen, really he does, but...oh, well. Introductions are made to be awkward, right?
It turns out that a grand total of forty-three people have come to the lake this year. There are too many families to keep track of (he doesn't even try); adults and children and babies, girlfriends and fiancées, friends and coworkers and more.
Four others are in college, too, and he and Rachel naturally gravitate toward them. It's easy to fall into conversation about GPAs and terrible professors and the disgusting food at the student union in their respective universities. (Some things seem to be universal.)
The conversation shifts to athletics and yeah, he's got this. Kyle, who's Jenny's boyfriend – at least, he thinks that's what Rachel whispered in his ear – plays baseball for his school's team in upstate New York, so there's an instant connection. The discussion begins with bullshit calls, then turns to attendance at games; it phases into crap coaches (Kyle laughs at Finn's impression of Tanaka and his perpetually short shorts), and finally, as they guffaw at the latest locker room prank Kyle pulled on his teammates, he realizes that it's nearly dark.
When a man in his late twenties pulls a guitar from the case beside his camp chair, it's no surprise to hear a few calls of "Charlieeee!" nor is Finn shocked when Charlie strums the first chords of "Country Roads".
The sky blazes a deep copper, tinged with wisps of pink and purple at the horizon, and he settles back, happy already, here beside the campfire with Rachel's hand in his.
There is a rope swing over the lake. Does it get any better than that?
They take turns, running from high on the bank to soar through the trees' cool shade, arcing out into the sunshine that sparkles on the lake's surface. There are three or four seconds of perfect bliss, right there in the middle, after the sting of twigs beneath his feet and before the less-than-graceful landing in the cold water. This has to be summertime perfection.
If he gets to grab his girlfriend's wet, bathing suit-clad bottom once or twice when no one's looking, the experience is all the more perfect for it.
He's totally coming back here next year.
On the third afternoon, when Jack (Laurie's husband…maybe?) offers his four-wheeler to Finn for a ride in the woods, that siren song of a heavy-duty motor and all-terrain tires can't be ignored. There's no way he's passing up this experience, even if there are bears out there. (But he's not scared, really. Just careful...cautious. That's it – cautious.)
He doesn't know how he persuades her to leave her beach chair in the sun and join him (well, he does, but he prefers not to think about having to watch Singin' In the Rain when they get back home), but oh, this is it - an engine revving hot and powerful beneath him, the throttle wide open, and her hands splayed against his chest, arms wrapped tightly around his ribcage.
He can't help letting out a rebel yell, just barely audible over the engine's roar, as they tear down the trail. Rocks and tree roots are nothing, steep climbs and sharp turns are no match. How had he ever thought the rope swing was perfection? Hell, no. That was cool, but this is awesome.
Rachel bounces on the seat behind him, shrieking with either terror or excitement, he's not sure; he hopes she's as exhilarated as he is by this experience. The air is cooler here under the thick canopy of trees, and it smells...green. This wouldn't be nearly as amazing if he'd driven off alone.
He slows to a crawl when the terrain becomes too tough to run all-out; the idling engine and exhaust sounds like the steady pop of popcorn between his knees. He calls to her over his shoulder. "This is rad!"
Pressed against his back, she juts her chin over his shoulder so he can hear. "I don't know about rad, but it's definitely more enjoyable than I always thought it would be. The woods are beautiful up here."
He half-smiles against her cheek, his chest expanding inside with a strange happiness at finding something they enjoy together. Back home on their summer break from college, they'd spent time at the park, gone mini-golfing, eaten loads of ice cream, played games, watched movies, done a dozen other summertime things together. Here at the lake, he's having a blast, but...not usually with Rachel, now that he thinks about it.
There was a pick-up game of baseball in the clearing by the pavilion yesterday with Kyle, Katie, and a handful of others; he'd played soccer in the same little field that afternoon when some kids had coaxed him into joining them, and had a long, heated discussion with Charlie about this year's NFL draft picks after dinner last night.
He's sure she doesn't mind just watching him play – I mean, she always watched him in high school, right? – and she's got her book to read and the other girls to talk to…
He's decided not to worry. They'd gone swimming and swung on the rope swing together, hadn't they? They'd taken a hike (and seen a bear, oh holy shit, lumbering along the rocks on the opposite shoreline – that was Bear Number Two and, he hopes, Bear Number Last), made out in an old duck blind, and played with baby Ella together back at the pavilion. He's certain – fairly certain, at least – that Rachel is having a great time, too.
The four-wheeler bumps along over the rocks, and he picks up speed again when the trail is smoother. The sound of the engine reverberates in the trees, echoing back to his ears through the brush. He's still grinning – this is wild, and he feels wild for it.
They take a break at the top of the ridge, high over the lake. His heart pounds with the absolute beauty of the world around him, the sound of birdsong in the trees and the wind rustling the leaves, the quickened breathing of the girl whose legs now wrap around his waist, this person he loves so desperately, in her drama and her crazy and her passion.
Yeah. This is it.
He delivers the four-wheeler back to Jack with a grateful grin and fervently hopes that he never, ever suspects what his poor ATV has seen.
She's listening to the soundtrack to Oklahoma! when he walks into the living room.
"Hey, Rach, me and Kyle are going to play some volleyball down by that picnic place."
Her eyes don't quite meet his, and her smile is hollow. "Have fun."
(Uh-oh.)
He soldiers on. "You wanna come? I know Jenny was hanging around there earlier, and I think Katie said she was coming to play, too."
"Katie and I are no longer friends." She switches off the music, turning to face him directly. He doesn't like how her eyes narrow as she takes a deep breath to speak. "When I told her that the next production of our theatre program – our award-winning theatre program, I might add – " She points at him, as though he had contested this fact, " – was The Scarlet Pimpernel, she not only had the absolute gall to make fun of the name, but told me it sounded boring. Boring, Finn!"
He shrugs, lost. This one is new to him, even after four years of listening and watching and seeing this stuff live. And, he as to admit, the title is pretty damn funny. (He's just not telling her that.)
"It's a thrilling and beautiful tale of deception and heroism and true love! And our production is going to be amazing, of course." He nods, and Rachel goes on. "She's just jealous of my musical talent, since hers is so far inferior."
He doesn't quite know what to say to this, since two days ago Katie was possessed of at least "passable" talent. He probably chooses his words poorly.
"So…you coming?"
Her already-narrowed eyes flash, and her "no" is rather emphatic. "But I'm sure Katie will enjoy another chance to stare at your rippling muscles, so you'll both enjoy the game."
Oh, shit. That's…unexpected. (Though it does, he thinks with a sudden clarity, give insight into why Katie's vocal skills have abruptly come into question.)
He's torn. A game of volleyball sounds great, and Kyle is cool as hell; listening to "Poor Jud Is Dead" isn't exactly an equal alternative, especially when his girlfriend is obviously angry at The Scarlet Pimpernel having just been so heinously maligned.
He doesn't know quite what to say to this, either, nor does he know what to do. And again, he probably chooses poorly.
He's certain of this when she pointedly ignores him during dinner.
Back at the cabin, the what-the-hell-did-you-do-to-my-daughter look is unmistakable and doubly unnerving coming from both dads. They do, however, seem to blame him less for her attitude when she brings up Katie and her comments, registering their disbelief at her ignorance of superb musical theatre.
He's relieved when the conversation shifts to the huge fish he caught earlier in the day, although it doesn't escape his notice that Rachel is the only one who doesn't offer congratulations.
There's a nervous lurch in his stomach as he wonders if her dads notice, too.
(His consolation, he thinks as he brushes his teeth, is that his team did win the volleyball game, even if he was bummed that Rachel wasn't there to see it.)
He's so close to sleep, he almost doesn't hear her climb down from her bunk.
It's when she sits down beside him, her tiny form sinking to the mattress without the slightest creak of springs, that his eyes open in the semi-darkness. She's a silhouette against the moonlit windows, but he knows her touch; the feel of her small hand against his chest is one he would know anywhere.
He moves to sit up, wondering what's going on. He's barely upright before her arms wrap around his shoulders, and she pulls him to her tightly. There's nothing for it but to hold her.
Her whisper is barely more than a breath against his chest. "I'm sorry, Finn. I'm so sorry."
"Hey, it's okay, Rach. Really." He rubs her back through her t-shirt, comforting her like his mother did for him when he had nightmares as a child. "Shhh," he adds unnecessarily. Even whispering through her tears, she's nearly silent.
"No, I...I wanted you to have a wonderful time here, and you are, and I'm glad! It's just –" She takes a deep breath, and the words tumble quickly, quietly, from her lips. "It's like high school all over again. You're Mr. Popular, and I'm nobody." There's a tiny sniffle from somewhere near his shoulder. "We've come here my whole life, and growing up, these were -" (another sniffle) "- they still are some of my only friends. I know it's stupid and selfish and I feel terrible for thinking this way, but...I can't help it."
He lets go of her long enough for his palms to find her cheeks in the half-light.
"God, Rach, I'm so sorry. I totally didn't mean to leave you out." He feels like an absolute jackass. "I mean, these people are cool and I like 'em well enough, but I don't really know anybody, and I wouldn't care if none of them were here – if it was just you and me and a few bears outside – " He stops short. "Okay, maybe not the bears. But if it was just you and me and the lake and a four-wheeler, it'd still be an awesome trip. Hell, it'd be a better trip, because we could, you know...do stuff anytime we wanted to."
Her cheeks rise in a smile beneath his hands.
"I am glad that everyone likes you." She leans forward to kiss him, the small sound resonant in the silent room. "Maybe I'll play badminton with you tomorrow."
There's no way in hell he's going to tell her that badminton is only for pussies, and he's absolutely suppressing a boyishly perverse giggle as the word "shuttlecock" suddenly enters his mind, unbidden. He's heard some really, really stupid shit come out of his own mouth in his lifetime, but tonight he's going to quit while he's ahead.
That choice pays big dividends in the next moment, when her hair tickles his cheek and he feels her breath, warm at his ear. "And stuff sounds...nice." Her whisper makes him shiver.
"Yeah, I wish."
She says nothing in response, and he wonders for a long moment if she'd misinterpreted his words. But then he feels her hand snake between their bodies; her lips crash against his with an urgency that was absent in their last kiss.
Her fingertips slide between the waistband of his shorts and the skin beneath, and before he knows it, before he can think, her hand is at his chest again, pushing him back against the pillow as she tugs his shorts to his knees.
He sits up again, hissing her name as quietly as he can, but she shushes him in the same moment she grasps his erection (he couldn't help it – she was pressed against him), stroking once, then twice again.
And the room is dark now because his eyes have closed.
But…no. This can't be happening, he thinks. Not with her dads snoring in the room right next door. They'll hear them. They'll wake up, and walk in, and find them, and someone will have to explain to his poor mother why he was brutally murdered during this trip.
But then she adjusts her grip, her thumb doing something absolutely magical now, and he has to concentrate on his voice box (and not her hand) to keep from groaning aloud.
His eyes open again in the next moment at the absence of her touch, and even in the dim light, he can tell that she's leaned back to pull off her underwear. He finds himself taking over the previous work of her hand without thinking about it, but she's ruined him for this, and his own clumsy paw is no match – something he'd discovered years ago, the moment she'd first touched him.
Reason and logic and sense are gone when he feels her knees against his now-bare hips, when her lips find his once more. Damn, she's potent to him, a heady drug he can't remember not being addicted to; it's so terribly easy to fall like this.
He can feel her heat even before her wetness, and he wants to lose himself in this moment, in everything, but dammit, he wants to live to see tomorrow, too, so one ear stays focused on any sound from next door.
She sinks down slowly on his erection, a tiny "oh!" from her throat the only sound in the room. Neither one moves, though he feels her tighten around him inside, and he's sure the world spins for just a moment. Every sense is heightened in the semi-darkness and the danger of what they're doing. He's never felt anything quite so thrilling.
He can feel her knees flex against his hips as she begins to move – up, back down, and a little intermittent twist that he knows helps her to get off. Leaning forward, his hands clutch at her back beneath her t-shirt. He finds her ear with his tongue and traces a line to her shoulder and back again.
It could be an hour, maybe a lifetime, possibly a minute but most likely less, before she stills against him and he can feel her climax in the muscles that clench around him, the fingertips that dig into his back, and the gasp at his ear. He holds her close, aware of the quiet sounds in this room and the next. He allows himself one glorious moment to focus solely on the girl in his lap and nothing else.
And it's this moment of letting go that puts him over the edge. Every nerve ending that spent the last few minutes on high alert seems to melt with his orgasm, and suddenly he cares very, very little about anything else in this cabin except this moment and this connection between them. (Which is terribly foolish, of course, but he's certainly not thinking straight.)
He could hold her forever, just like this, but not tonight. Carefully, she slides from his lap (there can be no mess, no sign of anything they've done) and puts her underwear back on. He watches her in the moonlight, entranced as always. She kisses him quickly, holding his face in her hands, then climbs back up to her bed as soundlessly as she'd descended.
Fully clothed again, all danger gone, he lies back against his pillow and ponders the last few minutes, wondering vaguely if what just happened was all a crazy erotic dream.
He finally falls asleep with a lopsided smile on his face.
When they pack up to go, he finds that he's truly sad to leave. Stuffing his shirts roughly into his duffel bag (he'll totally throw them in the laundry pile before his stepbrother sees the wrinkled mess), he turns to smile at Rachel as she carefully refolds and packs each tank top and t-shirt.
"Thanks for bringing me along, Rach. This place is awesome."
The smile she returns is bright, and her eyes shine with happiness. "Thank you for being here. I hope we can both come back again next year." She looks down at the hoodie in her hands, folding it deliberately as she speaks. "And for a long time after that."
He feels his cheeks flush, but can't stop the crooked grin that lights his face.
"Yeah. Me, too."
He gets Kyle's last name, promising to add him on Facebook.
He avoids a hug from Katie (he's not stupid), but is glad to see that Rachel does embrace her old friend as they say goodbye. The two girls share a whisper and a giggle, and he shakes his head. He'll never understand women.
Jack claps a manly hand on his back as Rachel and his wife hug. (Oh God, he knows.)
The Berry Family Plus One is having the annual "What was your favorite part of the trip?" discussion ("Same answer every year, Baby Girl! You always did love that rope swing.") as the car kicks up a cloud of dust from the dirt road.
A swift-running creek winds along the road's curves, and a Great Blue Heron catches his eye as it takes off from the shallows with a splash. He watches the steady beat of the bird's slate-grey wings as it flies along beside them, following the stream in search of a meal.
He's so entranced by the beauty of the huge bird that he almost misses the flash of black in the bright sunlight at the water's edge.
"Bear!"
"Where?" Three voices respond, and one giggles as the car slows.
He points a finger (which he's appalled to see is shaking) to the far shore of the creek.
Mr. Berry turns in his seat, grinning. "Good eye, Finn! How many are we up to now?"
"Three. And that's three too many."
The laughter that follows is easy and content, the kind that fills the car after a nearly-perfect trip – which this was.
We all have emotions, he figures. He sure doesn't always deal with them the right way, and goodness knows he fucks up continuously. But he's definitely man enough to forgive and forget and let the little things go. Hell, he's acted like a douchebag too many times to count (a few times this week, he knows), and he's worked his way clumsily through issue after issue in his life. After all that, the people he loves still love him back – including the dramatic, high maintenance girl whose slender fingers are threaded through his. That's pretty cool.
So when it's his turn to share his favorite part of the trip, his answer is ready. It's totally cheesebucket, and moreover it's a lie, at least partially, because the image in his mind is one no father (and definitely not two fathers who could throw him bodily from this moving vehicle) wants to see. But he looks down at his hands and over to Rachel, and he knows that the answer he gives is still true.
"Everything. Everything was awesome."
Author's Note: The feeling Finn has on the four-wheeler is the same feeling I have when I ride one at my friend's parents' farm in the mountains of upstate PA. It's one of my favorite places in the world, and that little slice of heaven is what I imagined for this. The first time I went to visit there, a bear ran across the road in front of my car. I [now famously] shrieked, "Holy fuck!" and immediately clicked the door lock. Beth said, "That's the first bear I've seen this year!"...so that's where that comes from. It's tradition on every visit to keep count of the wildlife - turkeys, deer, bears, etc.
Also, yes...that scene is from my own memory as well, one unplanned, not-so-thought-out moment on a trip with my ex's family to a lake in Maine. I'm slowly discovering that sometimes real life makes for interesting fiction later on. ;)