I did not make any changes to the text before posting, so the quality of this 10 year-old oneshot does not reflect my writing abilities now (I hope). I sure did like to use as many words and commas as possible!
I've now lived in NYC for almost 9 years, which is nuts.
Reviews much appreciated - I miss interacting with this fandom!
Original Author's Note:
In short, a Klaine/Faberry-intended fic gone astray, that spun out into an angsty Finn monologue, pining over Rachel Berry the way I do. This fic was an accident, unbeta-ed, and is a hot mess in my eyes, but it's what my fingertips come up with when I sit down to write. It was interesting for me, writing from the perspective of a character I don't particularly enjoy more than any other, and sort of an experiment in my spur-of-the-moment creativity. Feedback, likes, and reblogs are appreciated, although never demanded.
The air smelled like rain and cigarette smoke and hot dogs, and he crinkled his nose as a bent and wiry man shoved past him, penny-scented and muttering to himself. The sidewalks seemed dirtier to him, and the streets perhaps a bit less inviting, but twenty-four year old tired eyes tended to be more perceptive than those of a lovesick teenage tourist. He was irritated and hungry, exhausted despite the four separate naps he'd taken between bus and subway car transfers, and the city with its bright lights and honking cabs seemed to frown at him as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. You don't belong here, it said, she'd said, because between his better years and his lonely days he'd chosen being a somebody in the middle of nowhere over being a nobody in the middle of everything.
He apologizes to a woman who'd crashed into his side with an empty stroller and made way for the flood of people seeping upwards, seemingly out of the pavement, into the light, away from the dark and silver of the subway station. He looked awkward and he knew he looked awkward, the single still thing in an ever-moving city, for once another reason than the usual too tall, or lanky, or odd. Everything was strange here. This was New York City. This was the place of dreams, of miracles. The place – the only place – where things happened.
Jesus Christ, how did he end up trapped in Lima?
He enjoys working at Burt's shop, really. It's a quiet life, but when he retires at the end of the day, sweaty and greasy, hands stained dark and brow permanently furrowed, he feels a little bit less like a nobody, as if with every car he works on, every dollar he makes, his dot on the map grows a little bit larger, a little bit less hollow. That's all he's ever asked for.
New York has so many maps though, so many places and things and people that suddenly he's ten times smaller, lost and empty again. After all, that's why she'd left. Anywhere other than Lima, superstar superhero Finn Hudson becomes, well, just Finn.
He's exhausted.
He scans the crowds for what feels like the hundredth time since planting himself, digging his roots deep into the pavement, and his face breaks into a grin at the sight of the tiny speck of a girl he'd missed.
Her hair falls gently to her waist in soft curls, dyed darker than its usual chestnut for a role, some role she'd told him about ages ago, and she pushes her bangs out of her eyes as if to see him better. The dress she's wearing fits her nicely, hugs her curves but is still very Rachel in pattern and modest cut. She clutches it to her sides as the wind blows against it and she launches herself towards him.
All too suddenly she's in his arms.
"Finn!" she squeals, and he feels as if he's about to pop with the weight of his name on her lips.
"Hey, Rach."
"I missed you."
"I missed you more." The truth of it hurts him. She smiles and he can remember a time when she was his sun and he was her moon, when they orbited one another in synchronization and called to each other on the wind. Now she's tied to another galaxy and he's floating about in space, searching for a new orbit yet threatening to crash whenever he gets close.
Her hand fits neatly in his, and she drags him down the street, steering sharply and humming to herself a song he's never heard.
"I have a show tonight, as you know, and if you'd like to come – well, I'm sure you'd like to come, it's just fantastic. I suppose I'm a bit biased, considering, but the directors have done a phenomenal job with it and in all honesty I think it should last a bit longer than my last show, which is good, although you never really know in this business. Anyway, we can go to that tonight, although my call time is earlier obviously and we can't just have you hanging around backstage, so you can hang out at the apartment for a bit if that okay. There's plenty of food, and it's small but we've managed to fit a flat screen in there somehow. We still have a few hours and on the way I'm sure you'd like to stop and grab something to eat, I know the perfect place and it's just a few blocks away. You like Italian, right?"
Finn nods, although she doesn't turn to look, doesn't pause for a moment and instead continues rambling excitedly as she pushes past tourists and businessmen, her steps dainty but sure with the certainty of a girl who's lived in the middle of it all for long enough to know how this works.
They're seated quickly at the restaurant, and Rachel helps him to best stuff his duffel bag away, under the table so that their legs brush up against it. He apologizes another twenty times for the late notice on his visit but she repeatedly brushes him off with a wave of her hand and a smile, that smile, the one he hasn't seen live and in person in ages, the one he wants to wrap himself up in the thought of.
"Kurt's show is dark tomorrow, we could drop by his and Blaine's place, if you'd like."
Finn misses Kurt. As a brother, as a friend, as a classmate, he misses his wit and sureness and quiet fire. They meet each other with pats on the back and casual smiles at family gatherings, but Finn can see the way his brother tenses up in Lima, loses his biting tongue and feisty attitude for the extent of his visit in exchange for concern for his father's heath and disdain for the crummy town where he spent his childhood. It's NYC and Blaine that light him up and send him whirring, and Finn would like to see it for himself.
"That sounds wonderful," he says. He receives a smile for his efforts.
The food is warm and delicious, they spend the next hour or so twirling linguini around their forks and chatting amicably over diet cokes before their plates are cleared and Rachel orders them both coffees.
Finn doesn't like coffee. He never did. He takes small sips and grimaces quietly into his cup while she gushes to him about how well everything is going out here in New York, what with her apartment, and her shows, and her special someone, which is a topic he jumps from quickly. Suddenly the tables have turned and she's all what about you Finn, are you with anybody right now? and how are things at Burt's shop? and the ever-daunting yes, but are you happy?
It's all very overwhelming. The scent of coffee is nauseating, he's dead tired, and her questions hurt his brain and his heart.
This isn't the way this was supposed to happen. He didn't come all the way to New York on a day's notice to evaluate his happiness, he came to see Rachel and hear Rachel and, god, even smell Rachel. But the girl that sits across from him isn't his Sun anymore, she's bigger and brighter, she's exploded into something too loud for him to hear and too stunning for him to see, and she reeks of coffee and sends him spinning away, like a repelling magnet. He almost wants to go home, but the idea of Lima sickens him now.
He pays, even though she offers, and he doesn't know why he does it.
The day is losing its shine, giving way to shadows as the hours pass. The walk towards Rachel's apartment is quiet, they don't hold hands and he's grateful until their fingers brush up against one another's and it hurts.
Her key is hidden under the mat. She would be so trusting as to practically invite strangers into her house, but she assures him that it's safe and she's smart so he leaves the thought alone.
Once they're in Rachel's fluttering about, spewing out "I'm sorry for the mess"s and "Do you want anything to drink?"s as she tosses her light jacket aside and toys with her hair in a small mirror just out of the entryway.
The apartment is small. From the doorframe Finn can see the tiny kitchen, in all its white-tiled glory, the standalone dining room, which consists of a small breakfast table and two mismatched chairs, and a loveseat pressed against the far wall, facing the flat screen Rachel had mentioned earlier. There's a small hallway lined with playbills, and a bulletin board that boasts callback invitations, a NYADA diploma, and heaps of Broadway tickets, pins on top of one another in lack of space. There's a door to what Finn presumes is a small closet, and another which leads to a beige bedroom, out of which floods the soft trill of piano music.
It's a bit cramped, but quaint, and Rachel explains to him that in reality, it's really all she needs. She laughs and says something along the lines of the city being her home, and her apartment simply being her bedroom, but he isn't paying too much attention, caught up in the lullaby streaming from an iPod in the other room, which is beautiful, but distracting.
"What's that music?"
She huffs and smiles fondly, "Clair de Lune. It's been on repeat for weeks now; I'm getting sick of it."
He doesn't understand why she doesn't just turn it off, but nods anyway and glances towards the television longingly.
"You know how to work the remote? You can go ahead and, you know, turn something on. I – I don't really know which channels are on there; I don't watch much of it, but… yeah. Well, I'm going to go freshen up, yeah?"
"Sure." Finn's hand is wrapped around the remote, but he simply wanders through the space, pausing to glance idly at the pictures on the walls and the leftovers on the table. He can hear water running in the bathroom and remembers a time when he would have followed her in, wrapped his arms around her waist and bent down to press kisses in her hair, whisper I love yous into her skin, a time when they were each other's everything.
Everything changed when she'd sobered up out of love and realized that he would only – could only – trap her in the arms that held her close, bind her from flight and from evolution, and she'd ended it then and there, mascara running down her face. It was the week before graduation. It was when Finn Hudson became a nobody.
He begins flipping through the channels until he hears the blow dryer shut off and a flustered, smiling Rachel comes skipping out of the bathroom.
"I've got about… thirty minutes or so until I've got to leave. Wanna… maybe, uh, meet my special someone?" She's grinning but it's pained and she's pulling at her fingers and refusing to meet his eyes. She's nervous.
"I—" He feels like he's drowning, like he's hurtling through space and the one thing he'd ever been tied down to was tag teaming him, introducing a second enemy, one over which he had no control and envied indisputably. "Sure," he squeaks, because he feels like he's been stomped on.
"Q?" Rachel's calling back down the hallway, which confuses him for a moment until the bedroom door swings open and Clair De Lune cuts off abruptly.
"Finn Hudson?"
In a moment there's a girl at Rachel's hip, a pretty blonde in a sweet summer dress despite the chill outside. She's fair-skinned and thin, with a light step and an air of superiority about her. There's a book in her hand, but it's tattered and he can't make out the title from where he's sitting.
The girl is undeniably, impossibly, Quinn Fabray.
Finn breaks.
They talk for what feels like hours but is really only the thirty minutes Rachel has before she leaves for her call time, a smile on her lips and an apology in her eyes even as Quinn kisses her goodbye, hands lingering at her waist. They talk about Rachel's first year after college, running into Quinn, an intern at a local publishing company, and suddenly gaining a roommate. The two of them becoming closer, and leaving their small group for a more convenient apartment closer to Rachel's shows and Quinn's job. Suddenly falling, hard, for one another and tossing caution to the wind in favor of romance, of each other.
Finn Hudson feels sick. The two girls, the only two girls he'd ever loved, sit close on the couch and laugh into each other's sweaters as the recount their unlikely love story. Their eyes are shining, hands grasping needily at one another's, and he feels sick, ill with the way their happiness has swallowed him.
Quinn didn't tie Rachel down the way Finn did. She'd caught her, wrapped a ribbon around her wrist and then set her free.
When Rachel leaves she pecks him on the cheek and mumbles, "it wasn't something I could have explained too well over Skype" into his ear.