As always, thanks to TheLongFallOfProse for betareading this chapter. And please R&R!

Wednesday

"Finn?" came a small, ringing, delicate voice from behind him, a voice he'd usually have felt blessed to hear, a voice he usually craved. Now, however, he wanted the ringing to stop; he wanted the small, delicate, and unusually perfect voice of his best friend instead. The one he knew he had to love. Kurt's voice now fell easy on his ears, and stirred nothing but happiness in his stomach. This voice gave him cramps and made him want to slap the side of his head hoping to make it stop, because, really, why wouldn't it stop?

"Hi, Rachel," he tried to grin, one he always saved for her where the skin scrunched up under his eyes and his lips curled up to one side, letting her see only half of his set of teeth. The one that told her he loved her, the one that he knew made her feel dizzy. The number of times he'd practiced it in the mirror these past few days, trying to get it perfect again because he wanted to see her blink three times and then grin a little absently. He loved how she did that. But he told himself that that grin was for Kurt now, and something twisted in his throat.

"I haven't really spoken to you today," her teeth tugged at her lower lip, a vision of churlish nervousness that should have been absent. Rachel used to radiate confidence, with wide eyes and toothy smiles, something he admired in her, so this sudden change was unnatural; it was so not... Rachel. Now she had the air of someone who was resisting the urge to look behind her shoulder, someone who had a conscience plagued with something black that, evidently, she hated.

"No. I guess not," he said, looking away, making sure that that crazy Jacob kid wasn't lurking in the shadows, ready to suck up another supposedly 'juicy' story. The coast was clear. "But then, you didn't really speak to me yesterday, or the day before." He snapped, because, damn it, he wanted her to hurt like he did.

"No. I guess not," she replied.

The repetition of his own words kind of chilled his spine a little. He loathed how she always seemed to be a centimetre too far into his head, his thoughts; the way she saw a reason behind everything he did portrayed him as her inferior. "Finn?" she tried, breathing lightly at the end of the word, as if she was testing him, before continuing, "Are you mad at me?"

"Why would I be mad at you? Should I be mad at you? Have you been seeing Puck?" Pausing, he leant forwards, watching carefully as her eyes widened and shifted awkwardly around in their sockets—

"Again," he added for good measure. A spine of pleasure at seeing her perplexed caught him off guard, and he had to dig his teeth into his upper lip to disable an unrequested smile, then it was mingled with disgust as he saw her contemplation. He missed being able to rely on Rachel to never be hiding anything, how she always told the explicit truth whether you wanted her to or not, although, it might just be that she was crap at lying – Jesse had proved that point.

"And whose help exactly did you receive to come up with that hypothesis?"

"Erm..." he guessed at what she meant, and fury at her belief in his own incompetence pricked his ears back and clenched his fists, "I can work things out for myself, Rachel. You've been lapping at his heels for the past week."

"Puck's changed, Finn. Only a little bit, but he's had a taste of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a slushie, and he's expressed his displeasure at the situation. So, naturally, he's reconsidering his behaviour."

"And you're helping him," he deduced. Finn had to admit that Puck had been acting differently: there were fewer snide comments; a dearth of overconfident smiles now left his expressions open for sincerity, and occasionally, he would be silent for days on end—but maybe that was just when Finn was around. It wasn't deemed natural for Finn to feel a sense of loss alongside that recognition: after all Puck had done, why should he be getting all nostalgic over their past mistakes? Maybe it was because Puck had always offered an uncomplicated relationship; they'd known where they were with each other – something that was void in his life at the moment, even his relationship with his mother had gotten weird last night, and don't get him started on Kurt and the heady brew of wonderfulness that invaded his stomach when he thought of him or saw him, or the heady brew of wonderfulness that used to invade his stomach when he thought of or saw Rachel. All this just went to emphasize the difference between his past and his present, and the differences he was afraid would take place.

"Maybe." Rachel's eyes averted to somewhere at the bottom of the stairwell, her hair shaking out behind her and she clutched a file to her chest. He thought he saw a breath stutter.

"No. You're not helping him; you're trying to start off that whole Puckleberry thing again!"

Her attention was seized again, announced by wide eyes that neither protested her innocence nor denounced her guilt; her own fist clenched in a tight ball at her side, and her eyes narrowed, "I recognise that my dating Puck did help both our reputations, although I don't care for that sort of a relationship—" her left eye twitched, "—late night booty calls, and sexting. Another thing I recognise, Finn, is jealousy!" She was starting to yell now, and her voice, only amplified, was cutting enough to hurt Finn's ears.

"I'm supposed to be your boyfriend! It's natural for me to get jealous!" Finn spat. The insinuation that this was his fault ignited his desire for an argument, for some closure. On the other hand, he knew how brutally unfair he was being, considering the feelings he felt when he thought about Kurt and the relative intentions; at that moment, he didn't care.

"Well maybe I don't like the restriction that that comes with it. If I'm not even allowed to talk to Puck," a nervous quiet constrained the volume of her voice, as she knew that this was the clincher. Her eyes slowly lowered to watch the floor as if there was nothing else of any interest.

"It's not the talking I have a problem with—it's the smiling and fluttering your eyelashes like someone's just chucked a load of dust all over you. And it used to be you with all the restrictions and the timetables and calendars and matching crap and stuff! You're being such a hypo... a hypocrat!" he threw a fist in the air.

"It's hypocrite, Finn,"

"Whatever!"

"How do you even know that word?" Amicability returned to her voice as quickly as it had left, and Finn thought he heard something of the Rachel he'd known before; the one who dared to show an interest in him, as ardent as it was.

"I heard Kurt use it."

Rachel hummed in acknowledgement, then nodded curtly, speaking the final words of the argument with venom on the end of her tongue, "Well, I guess that's it then. We should take a break."

Finn said and did nothing, accompanied by a lack of regret and anger. An anguish that came with upheaval left only emptiness in his chest, the feeling bland enough to convince him that he didn't really care. Only, secretly, where only he could hear his egotistical gratitude, he thanked God or whoever was up there for the lack of the usual you're-dumped! spiel; that would have been rubbish and humiliating.

Conversely, he did think that Kurt would have handled the situation better, with that suave confidence that allowed him to be quick off the mark and the unprecedented ability to perceive a person's weakness and strength, having done nothing more than watch them for five minutes. Or maybe he just had a bank of insults that applied to everyone?

Either way, there was a lot he could learn from Kurt. The prim, carefully crafted expressions and slow, purposeful blinks portrayed the boy's intelligence and there was always a glint in his eyes that made you think you knew what was coming, but then he slyly went and bowled you over anyway. Those brown eyes aided the work of a true professional.

Admiration could possibly blossom into love if he focused hard enough on all of Kurt's good points: like his quirky smile, and the intensity of his eyes, and the idiosyncratic way he would hold one hand floppily beside his face as he illustriously raises his eyebrows simply because it made it look like he thought he owned the school, when really, most people thought—well, knew (and Kurt himself was no exception)—that he was at the bottom of the social heap. They were all delights to Finn's heart.

He knew all of the niggling suppressed insecurities though. As religious and artistic as his moisturising routine, the facade he put on every morning fooled everyone except him; he'd seen the small boy when he was at home, when there was no one to play up for, when he could truly be himself. He'd seen him cry after his moisturising routine (later claiming that he had some toner in his eye), he'd seen the swagger disappear entirely as he walked through the front door, he'd seen him slouch on his sofa to watch some crummy girl's show.

Not that that always happened. Sometimes Kurt would feel confident, and therefore, Finn would be immensely happy for him, if he got an A in Math that day or if he did a massive powerhouse solo in Glee club. Then he'd keep his head held high and shoot Finn the most superior yet sweetest smirks that Finn had seen anyone pull off. His happiness was contagious when it was there, but equally was his sadness when it wasn't. In aspect, the Kurt everyone saw at school was sixty percent a costume.

And so even if Kurt was at the bottom of the social heap, Finn decided that's where he wanted to be.

Thanks for reading – things get a little more interesting from here onwards, now I've got the basics out of the way.

Please R&R!