Title: History
Characters: Rachel Berry and Finn Hudson
Pairing: Rachel x Finn
Prompt: Babylon by 5 Seconds of Summer
Challenge: Spotify (Most Played) Challenge
Warning: AU, out of character behaviour, swearing.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or the song, I do not make any profit from writing this. I should also say that I only use the characters and some events but largely ignore a lot of other things.
AN: So, it's been a while… Work, me not feeling like I want to write, lack of ideas and university studies got in the way but now I feel like writing a bit so I decided to challenge myself. I have playlists since 2016 of the most played songs on my Spotify and I decided to use the shuffle-function and write something based upon the song that came up and continue until I've written a story based on every song. There are 418 songs on the playlist so… I don't know how long this will take but hopefully I'll finish in this lifetime *wink, wink*. Anyway, if anyone feels up to the challenge, feel free to tell me and I'll read your stories too… any fandom is acceptable and any length of the story, it can be anything from a drabble to a multi-chapter story. You can have the lyrics in the story, only use part of the lyrics or not reference them at all but at least write which song it is in the beginning.
Word Count: 739
I thought we had a place, just our place
Our home base, my headspace
Was you and I always
But that phase has been phased in our place
I see it on your face, a small trace
A blank slate, we've been erased
Both of them said words that they regretted when they fought. Well, they didn't regret it during the fight but afterwards when one of them, as usual, had stormed out of whichever physical space their bodies, angry voices and heated emotions had occupied. It rarely took long for anyone of them to regret their harsh words.
Rachel was normally the one to storm out in a dramatic fashion with her long brown hair reminding Finn of some form of cape that superheroes wore but hers were attached to her skull. He rarely stormed out at all but when he did it was more violent than dramatic. Finn normally thought of her as some sort of superhero because of how brightly she burned. There was a fire inside of her that couldn't be extinguished in spite of how people treated her. He normally admired that about her.
Not when they were fighting though. When they were fighting, he thought of her as a villain and the fire wasn't beautiful, only terrifying as it threatened to bring destruction everywhere it went and made him wonder when they and everything around them would turn into ashes. Finn said that there was a fire inside of her. He didn't realise that there was one inside of him too. Fire can be beautiful when contained. It brings warmth and comfort but when released and out of control it can cause a lot of damage. They didn't realise when it happened but their combined fires had done just that.
He realised that they were approaching the end when they were fighting in the auditorium for the first time and he saw that expression on her face or rather a lack of expression. For the first time, while the rest of Glee-club sat around watching them fight for the millionth time, she looked at him without any emotions and he felt a shift when she stormed out. No one else seemed to notice it as he sat down but something had changed and there was no going back.
I'm tired of the feud, your short fuse
My half-truths are not amused
I wish we had a clue to start new
A white moon, no residue
The color of our mood is so rude, a cold June
We're not immune
Rachel sometimes thought of herself like a sponge rather than a goose but he, on the other hand, was more of a goose. She had tried explaining that to Finn but he didn't understand. Shockingly. Being a goose meant that when people threw things your way, you ignored it and while it did touch you, it never reached your core much like water against the feathers of a goose. Being a sponge meant that you soaked everything up and held it inside until you burst. She was a sponge even if she didn't act like one. He never understood that.
He never understood that even if she didn't feel the need to remind him of all the cruel things that he had said before they were an item; all those things lived in her brain and sometimes these horrible memories and feelings would make themselves known. Especially when they were fighting.
When they were fighting, she would sometimes forget that she loved this boy despite his flaws and that he loved her in spite of her flaws even when he was angry.
All the memories of the bullying came rushing back to her when they were fighting in the place that she had considered theirs and just like every other time it happened, subconsciously she pressed her feelings into the pit of her stomach and allowed them to simmer in peace. She didn't decide to, it merely happened and everything changed.
He became quiet after that and as per usual she stormed out.
She sometimes wished that they could somehow start over without any of their history hanging around like dark, messy monsters staining everything they touched; especially each other. She imagined that if their relationship was a physical being it would be damaged and blackened by soot that the fire left behind. There would be bruises and cuts, some closed and some open. But history couldn't be forgotten just like that and even if they did love each other, neither was immune to their respective pasts.
We said we'd both love harder than we knew we could go
But still the hardest part is knowing when to let go
You wanted to go higher, higher, higher
Burn too bright, now the fire's gone
Watch it all fall down: Babylon
The members of New Directions had seen them fight a number of times and when Rachel ran out of the auditorium that day no one reacted. They didn't realise that this wasn't just another fight. This was the end of a relationship and the release of a being created by two people who loved each other in all the wrong ways.
The end