Finn was a drummer at heart. His mom always told him that he had this weird connection with drums, even when he was in the womb. His father played the drums. She had said that during her fifth month of pregnancy with him, he would be kicking like crazy every time his old man got behind the drum kit. She liked to think that it was hereditary, Finn and his passion for the instrument. His father left them for the Middle-East two months later, and he used to kick like crazy everytime the story about the war came on the news too.
The first real memory he ever had of drums though, he was four. His mother was working as a secretary for Mr Bradley, this old dude with a huge house. Finn never really knew what Mr Bradley did, but he remembered the house because he used to tag along with his mom for a period when she couldn't afford daycare. He spent most of his time there stuck to his mom like glue because he had a tendency of breaking things when left to his own devices. Anyway, Mr Bradley had a teenage son, Andrew. Finn didn't know him personally or anything, but Mr Bradley loved to talk about his kid. He remembers clearly that day when he got lost because he was distracted by the scary-looking statue Mrs Bradley just bought for their foyer. By the time he tore his eyes away from the naked lady, his mom and the housekeeper were already gone. He had panicked a little as he walked up the staircase to look for his mom. He tried not to cry but the house was huge and really creepy and by the time he reached Andrew's room, he was downright terrified.
But then he saw it. It was like seeing the love of your life for the first time. Well, if you met the love of your life when you were four. His vision had zeroed in on the drum kit, the rest of the surrounding a blur. He was so sure that the spot where the kit stood was the brightest spot in the room because it was the only thing he could see. Next thing he knew, his feet had already taken him nearer, until he was already sitting behind it. He ran one short, chubby hand against the rim of the cymbals and it just felt right. Even when he was four he knew.
They found him five minutes later (The unholy pounding made sure of that.). His mom had been furious, as she pulled him by the ear while simultaneously apologising to the old man, who had a bemused look on his face but told her that it was fine. He even smiled. Finn liked Mr Bradley.
But Finn also remembers, with glaring clarity, what happened later that same day. The mailman had came with a letter that pretty much changed his whole existence, although of course he didn't know that. He remembers tears rapidly falling and the wet spot on his mom's blouse. He remembers her turning around when he asked "Mommy are you okay?", grabbing him in a bone-crushing hug and literally wailing into his ear, completely incoherent. He also remembers being in serious pain but not being able to move because he somehow knew he wasn't supposed to. "Oh Finn, what do I do?" she had hiccuped, and he thinks today that that was the moment he began feeling the need to protect his mom so acutely. His father had been missing for four years. But it was still weird to know that the hope you've been told to hold out for since you were born had been useless.
(Sometimes, it pisses him off that his first good memory is constantly overshadowed by his first bad one.)
Her job with Mr Bradley didn't last long. Young single mothers were just not secretary material according to Mrs Bradley. But when she left the job, Mr Bradley had given her something better. At least in little Finn's opinion. He came home from daycare that day to find the drum kit, gleaming in the spot in the middle of his living room. The five year old had rubbed his eyes vigorously, wondering if it was a dream. "Surprise," his mom said, although she didn't look too happy about it, with her sunken eyes and the slight slur to her speech from that bottle of vodka in her hand. But five year olds don't notice things like that. He had whooped and yelled and ran over to that kit, running his hands over the cymbals almost reverently.
He didn't know how to play, and they couldn't really afford lessons because his mom was in-between jobs, but Finn liked to just sit in that drummer's chair, waving the sticks in the air like he had seen people do on television. Sometimes when she was in a good mood, she even allowed him to pound away for awhile.
When he was seven and his mom secured a permanent place at Wal Mart, he got his very first drum lessons. His teacher was a long haired hippy called Mr Grey, but Finn knew him as Leaf. Leaf told him he was a natural, and Finn thought he was too. There was just something right when he was behind the drums. The sticks always feel like a natural extension of his hand, and he had an inner sense of rhythm, subconsciously telling him what the next beat would be.
When they were maybe eleven, Puck started picking up the guitar because he had it in his head that they could be rockstars. Puck could sing lead and play the guitar and be the one all the girls went crazy for, and Finn would be the one behind the drums, the awesome drummer all the guys would want to be. Needless to say, the dream didn't last very long when both of them realize they couldn't write a song to save their lives. Then they moved on to better, more attainable dreams. Like football (Although the ball had never felt as natural in his hands as the drumsticks do).
If people asked him about drums, and who his favorite drummer was, he would say without missing a beat that it was Neil Peart. He'd go on and on about Rush whose music was weird and different and even freaky at times, but whose drummer was always known to be risky, to do things with the drums that most people wouldn't. But secretly, he always thought that if he could ever be an actual drummer, he wouldn't want to do all those things.
Part of the reason he loved the drums is because it was sturdy, reliable. It wasn't like the guitar, with riffs that could make a girl fall in love and chords that could break her heart. It wasn't like the piano, whose melody practically orders you to sit up straight and listen up, the keys luring you in. Finn figured drums were more like the backbone of a song, the steady and reliable fallback whose beat nobody really notices, but subconsciously react to with the tapping of their feet, or the drumming of their fingers, or the bobbing of their heads. Finn wanted to be that drummer. The one that makes the song just that much better with a sturdy, reliable beat that never fails to lift the music.
He was almost sixteen when he joined the Glee club. Or was blackmailed to join anyway. And Rachel Berry was something else. She scared him witless the first time they sang. His heart had been drumming on half-time, with short erractic on-beats. When she helped him with his voice for the first time in the auditorium, it changed into loud erratic open hi-hats, as he had laid her below him on that rug that was miraculously there, feeling the way her curves moulded into his. It beats in slow, barely there double beats when she looks at him, heartbroken and injured after he used her like the asshole he didn't know he was.
After a while he realized that his heart beats to the drum of Rachel Berry. That scared the fuck out of him.
When she gave up on him and fell for someone else, his heart stopped drumming. Stopped going into erratic hi-hats or open snares. It just went on beating regularly. Like a regular heart, the steady reliable beat of the drums were gone and replaced with the normal beat of the human heart, 60 beats per minute. He missed the sound terribly.
He said "I love you," and his heart drummed a solo at breakneck speed, completed with a crash on the cymbals.
Once, she had asked him to teach her. He'd spent the whole afternoon telling her what each part was for. The dissapointed look on her face as she sat on the chair while he stood in front her explaining what a hi-hat meant sailed right over his head as he encouraged her to hit the cymbals. At her half-hearted attempt he looked up and realized she just wanted to feel his body close in on hers. So he grinned (rather predatorily, he was proud to say), and stepped behind her without a word, picking up her tiny body and settled her against him.
He heard her sharp intake of breath as each of his hand firmly grasped each of hers. Ignoring her surprise, he guided her hand as he played the beat of his heart, sturdy and reliable. He taught her the song of his heartbeat and she learned eagerly, letting her hands feel the movments he was making, learning by heart each stroke and sound. If his heart followed to the beat of Rachel Berry, than her heart was a drummer.