A/N: This is for Lizzie (Paceismyhero) . Thanks for helping me find a job for Blaine and only laughing once or twice at how obsessive/compulsive I am. Also, hope your day is better than your weekend. This scene is parents free so that might help. Thanks to everyone else for the support and encouragement for a chapter that kicked my ass for no apparent reason. Y'all are amazing. As always, let me know what you think.

Song: Don't You Want Me by Human League

Disclaimer: Previously mentioned.

Chapter Twenty-Five: From Disgusting to Downright Filthy

The decision was made so quickly she didn't even have time to process it before his arm snaked out to grab her around the waist and tug her into her lap as he called out "Never mind, we're good!" to Josh and Katie, who had just arrived. Josh was busy looking for another chair because they were one short at the table; he just rolled his eyes when he realized why Finn had said that.

The boys had backed off the shots of tequila quite a bit in the two hours since Rachel had sung and now with the other couple's arrival. Instead the three had spent time sharing stories about Rachel in New York versus Rachel in Lima. Okay, really, Finn and Cooper had done most of the sharing while Rachel had spent most of the time with her face buried in her hands as one or the other looked on in amazement at some of the more outlandish things she had done. If there was anything to say about Rachel, it's that she had done some pretty crazy things without thinking of the consequences (which then came around to bite her in the ass—hard.)

"Okay, so…" Katie said. She paused to take a sip of her martini and looked over the rim of the glass expectantly at her husband, the Finn/Rachel piling and Rachel's friend, Cooper. "Explain to me how we're sitting here with two dudes from a band and two Broadway all-stars, in a karaoke bar and no one from our table is singing."

Finn tilted his head up and gave Rachel a small smile. "Rachel already did. She was awesome like always," he said.

Rachel for her part couldn't hide the smile that warmed her face. Given the epic failure of sleeping the night before, she tiredly rested her head in the crook of his neck, her fingers tickling over his arm as his hand toyed with the loose fabric on the back of her shirt.

"Eh, Katie has a point," Cooper said. "Plus, most of these people still suck." He stood up and held a hand out. "C'mon."

Rachel let in a deep breath, and shook her head even as she took his hand. "Well, not everyone has our years of training."

"And Finn doesn't really sing," Josh protested, trying to defend why the band members weren't taking the stage. His gaze shifted between the other occupants of the table.

Rachel was now standing on her own two feet but looked at Finn questioningly. "He can sing." She put her hands on her hips. "He can sing wonderfully."

Josh smiled good-naturedly. "I didn't say he couldn't, I said he didn't."

Rachel stopped and Cooper kind of gawked at her and then looked uncertainly at Cooper. The look on Rachel's face, the agreement and the passive, looking-for-a-comeback-ness was not something he'd seen on her often. Was that what it took? A well-constructed, calm response?

"Oh," she said, the shifting in gears nothing more than a little squeak. She looked to Finn and he just shrugged. They would get into that later, she supposed. "Well, he should."

The singer that had been on stage was finishing up their second song (which Cooper took to mean no one was in line behind them) and was now looking around uncertainly. Cooper reached out to seize Rachel's hand and drag her before she could say or ask anything else.

"So what did she mean about your singing?" Katie asked interestedly, leaning forward on her elbows.

"Huh?" Finn asked. They had stopped with shooting, but he was still nursing a beer and had been for the better part of the last hour. The pleasant buzz ringing through his ears was making it hard to hear in the crowded room.

"You sing?" She asked, her voice a little more forceful.

Finn just shrugged. "Eh."

"But didn't you tell me you met her in glee club?" Katie demanded.

Josh raised an eyebrow in interest. "You did that shit? Were you any good?"

Finn shrugged again. This time it was a little more uncomfortable. "Yeah, I guess. I was the male lead. Rachel was the female lead."

Katie raised both eyebrows before she started shaking with laughter.

Finn rolled his eyes. "What's so funny, Katie?" His voice was annoyed. He knew she was going to have more to say about it.

"It's just… that's just so fucking cute. I can hardly stand it. Sometimes you two make me want to puke, you know?"

Finn rolled his eyes again but before he could reply, the bouncy strains of a song he vaguely recognized started playing. Something wrapped around his chest and held on tight. Wherever he recognized this song from, it wasn't necessarily good.

You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when I met you. I picked you out, I shook you up, and turned you around, turned you into someone new…

He sighed and turned around; his back had been to the stage, and it still was so he was mostly looking over his shoulder and when she hopped in a bouncy little circle in time to the lyrics Cooper had started singing, Finn's memory flashed back to a terrible and terribly Rachel-like green dress…and a party in her basement.

The memory was complete when Rachel sent Cooper a flirty little smile before she yanked the second microphone out of its stand and started her own verse, walking around behind him and making eyes at him and….she had kind of looked at Blaine like that way back when. She hadn't looked at Finn quite like that the whole night back then, even when she was hanging off him, and he had recognized the special spark in her eyes when she was performing with someone and she was really enjoying herself. The spark was back again tonight, but she was wasting it on singing with another guy.

And then the song wove through their carefully spontaneous harmony and burst into a bouncy chorus, to which Rachel responded by launching into her patented jumping up and down while she was singing. Their voices blended and Finn couldn't help being seized by the same jealous feeling (although maybe this time it was even stronger) that had clawed at him all those years ago when he had been an outside observer to Rachel Berry kissing another dude.

It had been all mixed up then. When he had watched her and Blaine kiss during a game, he had pictured her kissing Puck because his heart was still just a little bit bruised. But then she had latched onto the kiss and he had known what Blaine was feeling, how soft her lips were, and what she tasted like and the only thing then he could focus on was keeping a straight face. If he held perfectly still and he didn't say anything and he didn't do anything then eventually the numbness would take over the hurt and he would be okay again. And really, at that time, he hadn't had the right to say anything even if he'd had the ability. She wasn't his girlfriend.

This time, she was.

He smiled as he watched her weave around Cooper, the guy moving with precision as he watched her. They had been co-stars together more than once, they had spent hours at rehearsal, and logically Finn knew that was how they managed to perform so well together. He hadn't seen them on stage; when he went to the city to see Rachel's play, Cooper hadn't been the one he saw her with. He didn't know why, but he knew if this was how they were when they were performed – leads or not –they deserved the awards they were nominated for.

And why couldn't he get that kiss he had watched her share with Blaine out of his head just because she and Cooper were singing this song?

"How does she do that?" Katie asked, her eyes glued to the stage where Rachel was still bouncing. Even smile on his face, she was still jumping and she was singing unbroken. She wasn't even a little bit out of breath.

Finn turned around to answer Katie's question and there was nothing but love in his tone. "She's always done that. She's crazy." He pulled his beer up to his mouth and finally finished it with two long gulps. Crazy enough that I watched her make out with a guy who was openly gay – and then the guy dated my stepbrother for a year and a half. He shook his head. He remembered how that felt.

Cooper and Rachel shined through their applause from the drunken patrons before they returned to the table. They still hadn't found an extra chair, so Rachel dropped rather unceremoniously into Finn's lap and frowned. For his part, Finn grunted with the unexpected contact and shifted a little in his seat to accommodate her again; he wasn't exactly complaining about this arrangement.

"My drink is gone," she pouted. Katie looked over at Josh and raised her own empty glass. He shook his head and reached out to pick up first hers, then Rachel's, and then shifted his fingers around them so he could hold Finn's empty glass too. Cooper still had two-thirds of his drink said his "no thank you". He offered to help Josh, but Josh declined and brushed a kiss to the side of Katie's head before he left.

"So does that song remind you of kissing Blaine like it does me?" Finn asked.

Rachel looked confused. "When did you kiss Blaine?"

Finn shrugged. "Um, no. That's gross. But they say that when you sleep with someone, you sleep with everyone they've slept with too; I think the same principle applies to kissing."

Rachel's eyes were wide as she turned her head to look at him. "You've always placed too much importance on kissing."

"Only when it comes to you," he argued. Katie sat up in her chair a little bit. She'd felt Rachel's comment ratchet up the tension at the table just a little bit and she wondered vaguely what it would be like to have a conversation with so much history weighing down every single word out of your mouth. She frowned a little; she had told Finn she was worried about him and she was never moreso than in this moment when she realized how heavy their baggage was and how much they really needed to work through.

"And the fireworks when you kissed Quinn?" Rachel demanded. Finn shrugged. "Finn, for some of us kissing isn't that big of a deal. It's in a script or it just feels nice for a minute or… you know, whatever."

Finn sighed and looked at her seriously. He let his hand roam up her back to play with the ends of her hair. "I'm not talking about when I kiss someone. I'm talking about when you kiss someone. Blaine was the first person I watched you kiss. It really sucked for me, just so you know."

"Blaine was not the first person you watched me kiss," she protested. She leaned back into his touch and as his fingertips rubbed over the clasp of her bra, she shot him a warning glance that made him smile and sieved a little tension from the conversation at hand. "Our lockers were right across from each other during our sophomore year—when I was dating Jesse St. James."

He groaned at the feeling, still raw and just too strong, that shot through him when she said that stupid name. He hated that guy.

"Yeah, I didn't exactly watch that," he muttered. Her eyes swept over his face. He was a little drunk, but not too bad. She looked at him skeptically before her face smoothed in realization.

She pressed a hand to her mouth to muffle her small and disbelieving laugh. "Wait. Is that the time you smacked yourself in the face with your locker door and got a black eye?"

Finn sighed as he heard Cooper and Katie both start laughing at his expense. And they didn't even know the whole story. Jerks. "I might've been staring at you and then he walked up and swooped in with his big hairball of sucky assholeness and I might have turned away a little too fast. Okay?" He could feel his cheeks flush a little bit as Cooper's laugh ripped open and Katie's was muffled. "Just.. drop it. Who cares anymore anyway?"

Rachel's thumbs tripped lightly underneath his eyes. "I guess I always figured you got sucker punched or something."

He let his eyes close for a bit longer than just your average blink and gave a low hum, contented with her touch. "Not literally." He sighed and shook it off as Josh returned and distributed the drinks accordingly. Finn shook it off, threw off all the old memories, and looked at her with a scowl. "I wonder how Blaine Warbler and his awesome-tasting face are doing these days. I haven't heard from him since him and Kurt broke up."

Rachel smirked a little. He had obviously held onto some memories for a long time because of her. She wasn't sure if that was good or bad. The fact that Blaine and Kurt had continued to date in front of him for a year after she left, and he mostly remembered the one meaningless (if not kind of hot) kiss she had shared with the competitive, dreamy-eyed boy—well, it spoke volumes.

When she finally spoke, she had decided to go for total honesty because they had implemented that policy far too long ago to call it into question now. "Blaine is doing well," she admitted.

It took him a minute, especially because he had picked his beer up and given an appreciative tip of the glass toward Josh for getting it before he took a drink. He looked over at her curiously as he realized what she had actually said. "Wait—what? You dropped off the face of the earth for the rest of us and you kept in touch with Blaine? Does Kurt know?"

Rachel shook her head as she picked up her Tokyo tea from the table and took a drink. She licked the syrupy residue from her lips before she spoke. "Kurt does not know, and I'd appreciate if you didn't tell him," she began. "It isn't secret, but I didn't see a need to hurt him with something trivial. Blaine is certainly easy enough to find if Kurt is so inclined. His job is not very private. His name is on the news or in the paper from time to time."

Finn scowled his concentration, trying to figure out exactly how he felt about what she was saying. "Uh-huh. What's his job?"

"He's a media relations associate for the ACLU. He lives in Washington D.C."

"That doesn't really explain how you still know him."

Cooper was frowning a little, but it was in concentration and not irritation. "Wait… is this that guy that comes through town like five or six times a year that I met?"

Rachel glanced over her shoulder at Cooper then thought better of it and shifted in Finn's lap a little so she could see him more easily. "Yes. That was Blaine."

"He was cool and all but… but you kissed him? I mean, he's pretty obviously gay."

Finn snorted. "Yeah, he dated my brother for a long time."

And just like that, Finn and Cooper were on the same side; Finn wasn't jealous of Cooper necessarily and Cooper trusted Finn a little more. She could almost feel the air change as the two men, arguably two of the more important men in her life, clicked. She frowned. This was going to be trouble. Of course she wanted them to get along, just not at her expense.

Cooper laughed out loud. "Let me guess. Ray was trying to turn him?"

"No!" She scoffed, the high pitch of offense creeping into the gasp. "It was Spin the Bottle and we were drunk…and…" she closed her eyes and shook her head.

Cooper sighed and looked at the small brunette. "That's the kind of 'and' followed by more information. You might as well share. You're among friends."

"Yeah, right." She said dryly. She looked over at Finn. He had been touching her casually, his hands drifting over her denim-clad thighs and the finely rough material of her shirt; that had stopped. He was still touching her, but his hands weren't moving and that said something to her. He wasn't sure he was going to like whatever came next.

"You didn't…you didn't have sex with him, did you?" Cooper asked. Rachel wasn't guarded about much with him; he wasn't sure how guarded she would be in front of Finn, but he thought maybe that's what she would choose to hide. Especially if it was his…brother's ex…and gross.

"No," she said. She felt Finn relax a little bit. There was no visible change in him. "I did make out with him a couple times, though."

"What?" Finn asked, the hand on her thigh tightening up. "But he's…he's…"

She looked at him with a nervous little grin. "Who cares, right? It was a long time ago."

"I care," Finn said, his voice hard.

"He went to Loyola because of some sort of family history with the law program there. He was intensely interested in the recording process and I had stayed in touch with him when I left, so when I was still out in Los Angeles recording when he moved, he looked me up." She gave a small shrug. "It was hard being out there, so secluded from all of you. Despite your claim that I fell off the face of the earth, I kept up contact as much as possible, but when you started preparing for sectionals, I had a really hard time with it."

Finn's exhale was slow as he watched her speak. She was talking to him, but was really speaking loudly enough that everyone could hear her answer.

"Well, Blaine totally understood how I was feeling. He and Kurt had broken up after graduation and he was quite lonely and uncertain and we were in such a large city that moved so fast…" her voice had grown thin and she finally made eye contact with Finn. "We held onto each other a little bit. We drank together a few times and…well, once we surpassed drunk and were more into highly intoxicated states, that's when our conversations got away from us and drifted to the Hudson/Hummel household and the boys we missed so much. It always inevitably led to making out as if that were comfort but…but we understood the realities of what was happening and it's not as though it went further."

"But he's gay," Finn finally managed.

Rachel nodded. "So he was safe for me and neither of us ever denied there was affection between us when we kissed. It wasn't love, it wasn't infatuation, and it wasn't ever going to go further."

Cooper shook his head. "You have got to be the most complicated person I've ever met. And I'm including myself in that list."

Rachel rolled her eyes and shook her head, but Finn nodded appreciatively so in the end she scowled at him. He rubbed her thigh reassuringly. "So let me get this straight. I'm supposed to not tell my brother that my now-girlfriend and then ex-girlfriend got it on with the boy he's still in love with?"

"You don't have to make it sound so underhanded. And we did not 'get it on'." She said, complete with airquotes at the end. That made the entire table laugh.

"I think you need another drink," Finn said simply.

"And I don't believe Kurt is pining for Blaine," Rachel continued, ignoring his previous statement. She turned her head entirely to look into his face. "He's fully committed to his job and…and he had that whole relationship with Ryan."

Finn's face broke into a small grin. "Uh-huh. And we wouldn't know anything about having whole relationships but wishing you were with someone else, would we?"

She really hadn't thought of it in those terms at all. She tilted her head. "You might know more about it than me."

He shook his head and openly scoffed. "Low blow," he said. He leaned forward and up just a little to give her a soft kiss. He pulled away and ignored Katie's exaggerated gagging sound. "Besides, I don't know about that anymore 'cause I learned my lesson." He gave her another soft kiss, followed by another.

She raised an eyebrow as she pulled away from him a gentle noise. "I certainly hope two weeks is not long enough to make you forget the lesson."

"…what lesson?" He asked, dragging his eyes open to look at her. His head was tipped back and his fingers were splayed over her back and it was safe to say he was totally wrapped up in the taste and feel of her. He would've been surprised if he could remember his own name.

"Finn!" she said, offering a playful swat at his chest.

Oh, yeah. That was it.

He just grinned up at her. "How would you feel about taking this back to my place?"

She flipped a glance over her shoulder to see Cooper at the door with a redhead and…when had that happened? Just how long was their conversation? Apparently, long enough for both Cooper and Finn to get out a "your place or mine" sort of question. "That would be fine, considering I think Cooper wants me to find other accommodations for the night anyway."

"How is it your place, Finn?" Josh said with a trace of challenge to his voice.

Finn raised his hand from Rachel's back to flip Josh off at the same time he gave Rachel a puzzled look. "Huh?"

"Oh yeah, he's been talking to that redhead for like ten minutes while you two were making out," Katie supplied. She shrugged easily. "You know, I think he figured your date was going to end well so he…"

"Sexiled me," Rachel finished. She reached out to grab the drink she hadn't quite finished. "It's been a long time since I used that word."

Finn was still confused, but he was laughing at least. "Is that even a word? Like…what…"

"Didn't you have a signal with your frat brothers?"

"Yeah, man," Josh piped up. "I'm with her on this one. We had like a whole set of codes, even when I lived off-campus."

"Oh!" Finn said. "Okay. The light thing."

Rachel tilted her head. "What?"

"Well, the house I lived in was just…there just wasn't a lot of privacy. But at some point, someone had put all the light switches for rooms outside the room so we would flip the light on and off before going into a room—like any time we had to go in and the door was closed." He looked at Rachel. "You and Cooper have a signal? Have you guys lived together?"

She noticed that at least his voice didn't harden when he mentioned Cooper's name. And at least the calling Cooper 'that guy' had been short-lived. "No. Me and Cooper do not have a sex signal. I forgot my room key so he was just supposed to not leave without me."

"Roommate fail," Katie said simply. "It's okay. We actually have another spare bedroom if Finn's snoring gets too loud for you. Or if he won't give you back the covers or something. You'd just have to be willing to sleep on a futon instead of an actual bed."

Rachel gave a genuine smile. "Thank you, Katie."

"Welcome," she said easily. "My guess is that Finn won't let you leave his room anyway."

"My room?" He asked. "I wasn't planning on letting her leave my lap." His grip on her tightened a little bit. "Like… ever."

Josh rolled his eyes. "Whatever, dude. You're not going to be able to play tomorrow night at the pub with her sitting in your lap. Or practice tomorrow morning, for that matter."

Katie leaned into Josh with a smile and he wrapped his arm around her before kissing the side of her head. "Leave him alone. They'll eventually reach that part of a relationship where you don't have to be disgusting all the time."

"God, I hope not," Finn said. Rachel tried to suppress the smile as she looked at him.

"Well, we will have to save some of it for Skype," she finally commented lightly.

"Sure," he replied. "But I have a feeling that's going to go from disgusting all the time to downright filthy some of the time."

"I'm counting on it," she said. He was too cute to resist when he looked at her like that and she took his face into her hands before she gave him a soft kiss. "I'm counting on a lot of things before we stop being disgusting."

He could see the heat in her eyes as she pulled away from the kiss. Between the look on her face, her hands on his skin, and the fact that his hand had snuck up to the waistband on her jeans just enough to tickle at the small of her back, he was pretty sure he couldn't wait another minute longer to be sexiled with her.

"Let's get outta here."