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Happy Valentine's Day, love. I hope you had a great day.
14 Reasons I Love You
11. I'm always scared that no matter how much I love you, it will not be enough. You'll find someone better, who loves you less, but who you love more, and the equilibrium will strike, and I...I just hope that when that day comes I'll already have someone else, selfish as that is. But at the same time, I hope that day never comes. Because you have no idea how much you mean to me.
Finn has always measured himself to other people. He knows that he does so unconsciously, because his father went away frequently when he was young, so he turned to other people to base his personality off of. When he lets himself think about it (not often) it's a point of shame for him, shame so scalding, so embarrassing, his breaths come quick and high in his throat, and he shakes and forces his mind away again.
From Puck, he takes devil-may-care'ness; Puck doesn't care what other people think of him, so that lets him do what he does. Finn, though... as much as he may act like Puck, deep down, he does care what other people think about him. So he walks around and does things, always conscious of the public eye, judging him, watching him, and to be fair to him, they are. They just aren't always on him, gossiping about him - they have other, better things, to be doing. Gossiping about the people on top, for example. Without his father's moderating influence, Finn also takes a dislike of controlling authority, which clashes painfully with his need to be liked.
From Dave Karofsky, he takes manipulation. Before, all the ways he bullied those under him in status were a bit like Puck's; very simple, physical things. When Finn sees the way people rallied to Karofsky, he copies some of those manipulations. The difference is, Finn is slightly more likeable as a person, with more-than-slight charisma; some supporters come away from Dave, who doesn't try to keep them. From Dave, he also takes an unconscious homophobia. He doesn't really care that Kurt Hummel is a 'freak', but that's popular consensus, and Dave goes on and on and on about it in the locker room, and over a long enough time he gets a bit of it deeply inserted into his 'personality'.
Maybe some of the reason he's always scared that someone is watching him, he thinks to himself one night before sleep comes, is because he's watching others out of the corner of his eye.
From Matt Rutherford, he takes a sense of fun in everything he does. What use is there in life if you can't enjoy it? Matt's said so, more than once - do things because you want to, not because you have to. Finn's tried. Filck, how much he's tried...
From Mike Chang, Finn takes social and physical grace. From Kurt Hummel, who he watches and envies for his manner with girls, he takes seriousness; a habit of looking into girls' eyes and talking to them as if they were just like guys. That was difficult, before - he'd look down and stutter and walk shyly away. Except if it was Rachel. But then, she's one of the guys too, right?
Out on the fields at dawn, on the track, Finn runs and runs. He knows from all the stories passed around in the middle school rooms that the star of a high school is the quarterback. And he wants to be popular. So he runs, and runs.
By the time he enters high school, he's taken so many pieces of other people that there are days he feels he's a walking, talking, plasticine doll, full of lumps and shapes that aren't too much like anyone, including himself. He doesn't think for himself, if he doesn't have to. It's too easy just to slip into preconceived patterns of behavior - jocular around Puck, quiet around the other jocks but ready to defend himself if they make power plays, bullying to the nerds. Finn knows that he could do better, but he doesn't know how to. There's no one he really respects that tells him to do better.
On nights when he's locked into himself, when he can be himself bereft of anyone else's personality, he stares up at the ceiling and wants to be himself, but he doesn't know how and anyway, there's no one to be himself for. He thinks of Rachel, who he'll always be fond of. She's one of the guys; talkative, sure...a girl, sure, but someone he personally likes. Dave's a 'friend', too, like her, but he can be something of a bastard. She's not like that. Most people think Rachel is annoying, but she's...constant. Soothing in her constancy. But she's a pariah, so when he's in his patterns, Finn stays away. He watches her, though, nothing too creepy.
He's also terribly ashamed of himself, when he watches Kurt. Deep inside, there's a very, very deep well there that respects Kurt like he respects no one else. He flinches as he thinks about Kurt, shying away from any feelings of like. He still cares about what everyone else would think, right, if he started buddying up to Kurt. They'd call him gay, too, and he'd never make quarterback.
Finn keeps his head down.
One day when he's playing his guitar outside on the steps, Artie shows up. And does something utterly insane. Sure, he's a nerd, but there's no one else around. Finn doesn't have to be bullying. Instead, he asks for Artie's help.
Artie gives it.
From Artie, he learns independence. It shakes him a little bit; like Rachel, he respects Artie as one of the guys, before the accident happened. And then...when he lets himself think about it, it's another point of shame. So many things he could've done, and none of them occurred.
That night he helps his mom with the dishes. She gives him a shocked look, and he glows from the inside. It's warm.
Quinn asks him out.
From Quinn, he learns how to mask. She's always shy and delicate with him, but when he sees her without her seeing him, she's ruthless, power-mad, power-hungry. But for the sake of protection and popularity, he stays with her, he treats her well, like a gentleman when he thinks about it (he took that from Artie). Long enough spent like that, and he's always a gentleman. He couldn't be rough with her if he tried, and what would be the point, if he was rough?
He watches Rachel get slushied in the halls, though, when Quinn isn't around, and hurts every time someone does. If they hadn't been so far apart, he would have protected her. (He takes loyalty from Mr. Tanaka's team drills) Even if everyone else seems to have deserted her, she's still one of the guys. Except that...she's not. She's...Rachel.
He has new material to be ashamed of, before sleep comes.
He thinks...in some other time, in some other place, he would have fallen in love with her, first thing, and treated her like a gentleman, like she deserves. But this isn't that other place; this is McKinley High School, and he's learned so many wrong things, like how to armor himself so that nothing real slips through his facade. Like, how to lie.
Then he joins the glee club.
Rachel notices him and he slips into his old pattern, treating her as one of the guys. When he thinks no one's watching (it's difficult to think about, because he's focusing so much on Rachel) he flirts with her, overt and covert, lines he'd never have thought of with Quinn coming easily to his lips and wisping through the air, carefree. And she knows all the correct phrases, demure and dominant by turns, and it's easy not to think with her, but to be himself. Whatever 'himself' is.
He knows his popularity is taking a huge drop by this and that (joining the Glee club, 'cheating' on his girlfriend with Rachel even though he's really not - and she's done worse before), but he can't bring himself to care. Outwards, to the school, he presents himself as a blank-faced, stupid, automaton, in his mind thinking up the next things he wants to say to Rachel, how she'll respond. He wants to - every time he makes her smile and close her eyes, his body shivers all over, a jolt of heat. Every time she retorts, a sharp reply with more words than strictly necessary, he aches. He doesn't kiss her, although he wants to. She's one of the guys after all, and he shies away from associating...like that...with guys. Somewhere he knows this is the most stupid decision he's ever made, but he'd rather keep going as it is, being himself around Rachel.
Mr. Schue teaches him that it's okay to think for himself. And it's okay to be bits and pieces of other people, as long as he can look himself in the mirror tomorrow and like what he sees there.
He makes a pact, when he sings "Hello", to be someone he won't be ashamed of, every day. He sees Rachel watch him sing it, and he's soaring now, the smile coming unbidden to his face. If Rachel is proud of him, then he's proud of himself.
He just has to figure out who 'himself' is.
By the time they're seventeen, Finn knows a little better. He plucks up his courage and asks Rachel on another date. She agrees, smiling at him, and she still causes that jolt in him. Plucking up his courage further, he wraps her hand around his and treats her like he wanted to treat Quinn, like being the gentleman she deserves.
He knows Puck watches over Rachel. He wants to tell Puck, it's okay, I'm here now, I'm really here, I'm not a copycat anymore, but he never does. It's not how Puck and he work, and frankly, he likes Puck enough that he's not going to change that.
He has a dad now. Burt...leads him to thinking about Kurt. That is a new point of shame. After their parents' marriage to each other, his neglect of Kurt...
He had a second chance, to protect Kurt, to legitimately do so, and he didn't. He knows now that he could blame his behavior all he wants, but now that he's more himself the only person he can blame is himself, and he hurts. He promises Kurt, at their parents' wedding, that he'll be a better brother, and he is. He tries.
His relationship with Rachel is still the same undercurrents, flirting and talking and listening, and he likes it. It's constant, in these miserable days, and...he doesn't know how else to express that she's good for him, that she makes him a better person.
He knows how much Rachel cares for him, how much she shows, and he has to wonder whether she cares about him as much as he cares about her. And that's a lot. A lot. Beyond words.
"Hey," Rachel says, looking up at him. He's troubled, but that goes away when he sees her.
He smiles and tugs her to him, loving how she knows he's thinking about something, but she can tell when he's thinking about her. He knows he gets a little crease in between his eyebrows, and he takes deeper breaths than usual. He can tell, because whenever he does that, she wraps her arms tight around him and nestles under his chin rather than settling on his shoulder. Her hair is smooth, and trying not to be creepy, he tucks a curl behind her ear and lets his hand fall.
His heartbeat goes, strong and steady, and he knows that Rachel knows that he loves her, and that he only wants to make her smile.
Rachel has always chosen to give her love to people who matter, and no one else, and Finn hopes, he hopes so much, that he can share that with her; share that, as a part of the Finn Hudson he wants to be.
I'm not writing Rachel because I don't have time to give her character the love she needs, and anyway...you can fill in the blanks, m'love; you're a lot like her. How you'd react is how she'd react, anyway.
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