On move-in day he meets a girl named Rose moving into the room down the hall and her best friend and occasional fuck-buddy, Layla. It turns out that sleeping with two women at once is not as empowering a fantasy as most men probably assume, after he's come and is waiting for his body to recuperate the girls happily continue without him; by the time Lil Finny is ready to go again they've got a nice rhythm going and trying to join in is a lot like waiting for the turn of a roundabout.

Eventually frustrated by their total obliviousness to his presence he locks himself in the bathroom of his new room and finishes himself off with brusque strokes of his hand. Despite the noisy activity of the bisexual ladies on the other side of the wall, when he comes it is with the memory of licking sweat and bittersweet ejaculate from the crease of tight abdominal muscles.

Quinn visits on Columbus Day and they go for lunch at a quiet restaurant on the edge of campus, outside Northam Park. She tells him about the introductory classes to her veterinary major and asks him about the standard set of introductory classes he's taking until he can figure out what the hell he wants to do with the next four years. As the meal ends she asks if he's missed her and it isn't until she asks that he realizes exactly how much he hasn't. The break-up is mutual and long overdue, but he still feels shitty about it and so lets his roommate talk him into going to a Columbus Day party being held across campus at The Towers to get his mind off it.

At the party he gets drunker than he's been in a long time and meets AFG (Asshole Frat Guy). AFG flirts with him, makes him feel better about the break-up, then takes him through to one of the bedrooms and sticks his cock in Finn's mouth. Spitting up foul-tasting, gunky semen and insults he makes several uncoordinated swings at the older student. AFG accuses him of having a hetero freakout, calmly tucks his flaccid dick back into his pants and fucks off. As Finn is scrubbing the taste from his mouth with toothpaste squirted onto his finger in the bathroom, the young man thinks about it and acknowledges that if this had been his first experiment into the flexibility of his orientation he might have tried asserting his interest in women and repressed like crazy; but the scent of magnolia and woodsy aftershave still comes to him in his dreams sometimes and he knows that a male lover can be just as sensual as the shapely curves of a woman.

Andrea Wells is his first girlfriend after Quinn and his first real college relationship. She's African American, 5 foot 8 with hazel eyes and a little mole over her upper lip that he wants to press kisses to from the moment he first sees her. They meet at a Halloween party in the student lounge and spend most of the night chatting on one of the couches. When her friends find her to tell her they're leaving, Andrea scribbles her number down onto a napkin and then boldly pulls the mask of Finn's Teen Wolf costume away to press a kiss to his lips that tastes of cherry lip balm.

They meet for coffee after his Fundamentals of Essay Writing lecture the next day and she lets him hold her hand on the way back to her room in the north campus halls. As far as girlfriends go, she's pretty awesome: she listens to him complain about Essential Mathematics class, checks periodically that he isn't bored out of his skull when she's talking to her friends about girl stuff, thinks that the chick-flick Serendipity looks dreadful and insists on seeing Thirteen Ghosts for their first proper date, braves the November chill to watch him run drills with the rest of the third-string players on the Buckeyes and most importantly, doesn't act like he's committed a grievous sin if he gets stiff in the pants when they're making out.

Two weeks into their relationship she introduces him to her older brother, Aaron. He's a grad student at Moritz College of Law on the southeast part of campus and enrolled at OSU specifically because they have one of the best reputed graduation rates for African American law students. Andrea followed her big brother from their home in Detroit after her first choice college rejected her and so jokingly tells Finn that he should thank the older man or they'd never have met. Finn is too distracted by Aaron's flawless skin and thick, rosy lips to reply.

The grad student is taller than Finn (A rare occurrence) and whoops his butt at basketball (Not as rare; there's a reason Finn's scholarship was for football). He's jovially flirtatious and better known to most of the campus as simply 'Wells' or by one of two nicknames: 'anal' and 'deep throat', the first is because he's notoriously well-organized, the second is for the sort of crude, sexual reasons one might have assumed upon hearing the former. The young man is blindsided by Wells' open admission of his homosexuality because he's about as far from prissy, fashion-obsessed Kurt Hummel as it is possible to be. As he thinks about it Finn begins to wonder if his insistence to Lima's only 'out' gay student that he wasn't homophobic was really as true as he'd always thought and thinks that if there are other guys like Wells who consider themselves gay, it might not be such a terrible thing.

He doesn't see Wells again after their first meeting until the Mirror Lake jump. Being on the football team means Finn is more or less obligated to attend, but the event attracts a large number of participants from among the rest of the student body. The grad student bumps into Finn after the jump as he is changing into warm, dry clothes in a secluded corner of the parking lot by the Aries; he explains that his roommate brought him to the event but is an astronomy nerd and plans to spend the next three hours stargazing and requests a ride back to the halls. As the older student talks Finn notices the appreciative looks his half-bare body is receiving.

They fuck in the back of the Aries, it smells of Krispy Kreme and there's a bottle cap digging into Finn's back the entire time. The young man cleans them off with a paper napkin and asks Wells if he has a habit of stealing his sister's boyfriends, the older student laughs richly and tells him he'll explain things to Andrea. The grad student must really have a silver tongue because Andrea's only complaint to Finn is his foolish attempt to avoid running into her, she bluntly tells him that she's lost him as a boyfriend and doesn't want to lose a friend at the same time.

He and Wells hang out and sometimes they fuck, it's not really a relationship but it works for Finn so he doesn't question it or ask where it's going. As satisfying as the sex is, he still sometimes wakes up from dreams of gray-green eyes and dirty Spanish phrases and hopes his roommate is deeply asleep as he tiptoes through to the bathroom to deal with his aching erection. Or on the unlucky nights, he'll wake from dreams of cold shoulders and shattered smiles to find tears on his pillow and a single name on his lips.

A week before Winter Break, Wells proves his talent for attention to detail that's going to make him a really kickass lawyer some day. Finn doesn't think 'Wells' and 'Will' sound that dissimilar, especially when they're being moaned by a guy getting his dick sucked, but the grad student pops his lips free of Finn's straining cock and refuses to continue unless he'll get the whole story when they're done. They eat leftover pizza from the mini-fridge and Finn tells the whole sorry tale from it's beginning; when he's done, the older student firmly commands him to get his dumb ass back to crapsack Lima and throw himself at the older man's feet until Will forgives him.

He passes St. John's Avenue as he gets into Lima on Christmas Eve and contemplates making the visit there and then to get it over with, but he's hoping that the reunion is going to be in his favor and knows his mom will have the police cruising the interstate looking for his rust bucket in a ditch on the side of the road if he doesn't make it home tonight.

On the morning of the 26th he heads outside first thing and scrapes the thin layer of ice off the windscreen of the Aries. As he works he thinks about the other people he should visit while he's in town: Puck's taking Senior year over and still living at home with his mom, Brittany moved into an apartment on Columbia Drive with a friend she made at work, he ought to drop by Ringo's and thank Jack for the letter of recommendation he gave that earned Finn a part-time job at a video store back in Columbus; but as he gets into the driver's seat he acknowledges that he'd only be stalling for time.

There's no reply for several minutes when Finn knocks at the door to apartment no. 7, but he's determined not to leave until he's had a chance to talk to the man he came all the way back from Columbus to see. He keeps knocking until there's the sound of muffled scrapings on the other side of the door.
Bryan opens the door slowly and peers out, he's glassy-eyed and wearing a thick sweater over flannel pajama pants. "Oh," He blinks heavily at the younger man and, with some effort, straightens up in the doorway to adopt a stronger stance. "Finn."
"You remembered my name?" The younger man is honestly surprised.
"I tend to remember the names of people who break Schuester's heart," The blond retorts sharply.
Finn flinches, but accepts the criticism as truth, "Is he here?"
"No." There's a prolonged silence as the two men stand watching each other, but gradually something softens in Bryan's blue eyes and he relents, "He auditioned for one of those amateur theater productions he likes. The play opens on New Year's Day so they've been rehearsing pretty solidly, you'll probably find him at the theater."
"Thank you," Finn fills the two syllables with earnest appreciation and leaves the older man to recover from his obvious hangover.

The young man's heart nearly leaps out of his chest with his first glimpse of the man he loves after months of not seeing him. Will's dressed in a thick, home-knitted sweater with a reindeer on it and the image is so encompassing of the older man's dorky hotness that Finn feels a little tremble in his knees as he walks down the steps towards the stage.

The older man is so caught up in the scene, reading lines from the script (A thick bundle of papers held together with bulldog clips) and looking to his co-star whenever he glances up, that he doesn't notice the younger man's arrival until Finn has stopped at the edge of the stage and called out, "Hey."
Will stiffens and turns a little pale, he spins round to face the younger man and gapes openly for a few seconds, "Finn?" He looks over to a frantic-looking man in a baseball cap, "Can I take five?"
"Sure, sure," The director doesn't look up, just waves in Will's direction. The actor walks down off the stage and approaches hesitantly, they meet in an awkward hug and walk off to a spot in the seats to talk in private.
"What are you doing here?" Will asks, watching the younger man warily.
"I came home for the Winter Break," The student answers. They both know that isn't what the older man meant, so he continues before the need for clarification becomes a problem, "I wanted to see you."
"What for?" The older man asks flatly, one eyebrow raised.
"You don't know?" Finn retorts, "Would it help if I told you that since I walked through that door two minutes ago I've been wanting to kiss you."
"Kissing wasn't exactly what you had in mind the last time we saw each other," Will observes harshly.
The younger man cringes, "I also want to apologize for that. I was an idiot."
"You were honest," The older man opines. "You made it very clear that I'd been stupid to think there could have been more between us than a cheap one-night stand."
"You think-?" Finn's mouth falls open at the bitter remark, "That isn't why I left."
Will keeps up his bristling posture, but there's a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, "Then why did you?"
"I had to leave for college." He sees the line set into the older man's brow and hastens to explain his meaning, "I was worried that if I stayed too long, heard your voice, saw your smile, felt you kiss me; that I would call the admin office at OSU and tell them to give my place away to somebody else because I was going to be spending the next four years clinging to your back like a koala bear."
Will's eyebrows raise slowly, his lips twitching with amusement at the mental image the younger man's words had invoked, "I don't-"
"I woke up in your bed and it should have felt like a one-night stand," Finn continues. "You came breezing in to tell me you had to leave, pointed out where my clothes and the breakfast stuff was and then left me to it. I got up, got dressed, sat down to eat some cereal and all I could think was 'I want this'." He looks down, a blush rising on his face as he confesses to the revelation that had terrified him all those months ago. "I wanted to wake up in bed with you, kiss you goodbye before you went to work, have Cap'n Crunch next to that awful healthy stuff in your cabinet... I wanted this big, grown-up relationship with you and it scared the fuck out of me. So I ran. It's just about the stupidest thing I could have done, but I never said I was clever."
"Do you... do you still want those things?" Will asks hesitantly, his hand brushing Finn's gently.
The younger man catches the shy fingers and holds the hand securely in his own, "Every damn second of every single day."
"Does it still scare you?" The older man prompts, the fingers of his other hand reaching under Finn's chin and tilting his face up until they're eye-to-eye.
"It terrifies me," The younger man whispers.

Finn decides on the spot that if anybody ever asks him, this was their first kiss. It doesn't come with the slow burn through his veins he felt during their almost-kiss when they were hiding from Bryan's poker buddies and it doesn't send hormones pumping through every part of him like their actual first kiss on the couch with Aliens playing in the background, but their lips connect smoothly and slide together with familiarity and deep emotion. It lasts only a few short moments but it's an apology and a promise.
"Schuester, come on; break's over!"
They pull back a little sloppily, a trail of saliva connecting their lips. Finn brushes across his mouth and shifts back so that Will can stand up.
"Stay and watch," The older man requests. "It's only another couple of hours, then we can go get something to eat."
"Sure," Finn agrees readily and the connection between them severs as Will jogs back to take his place on the stage.

He's still got to go back to Columbus in a fortnight, they might find that they're romantically incompatible in the long term, there's no telling how much his mom's going to freak when she finds out, there's the larger social stigma a gay relationship with an eighteen year age gap will attract in their crappy Midwestern town to consider...

And yet, as Finn watches Will run through his lines from his seat in the third row, all he can think about is how thankful he is that he got a second chance at this.

References used in this fic/Mass disclaimer for all the things listed:

Songs/Albums mentioned:
Train – Drops of Jupiter
The Eagles – Greatest Hits Vol. 2, featuring the songs: Hotel California and Life in the Fast Lane
REO Speedwagon – Hi Infidelity
Journey – Escape, featuring the song: Don't Stop Believing
Styx – Paradise Theater
Fleetwood Mac – Rumours, featuring the songs: Second Hand News, Dreams, The Chain and Gold Dust Woman
The Doors – Light My Fire
Iron Butterfly – In A Gadda Da Vida
Rupert Holmes – Escape
Vixen – American Dream
Helpful Corn is a band name borrowed from Daria
The Guise is (to my knowledge) an entirely fictional band name.
Blue Oyster Cult – (Don't Fear) The Reaper
Eric Clapton – Slowhand, featuring the songs: Cocaine and We're All The Way
Eric Clapton – From The Cradle
Air Supply – Air Supply (1985), featuring the song: The Power of Love (You Are My Lady)
Poison – Talk Dirty To Me
Christina Aguilera, P!nk, Lil' Kim, Mýa – Lady Marmalade

TV/Movies/Books/Plays mentioned:
The buddy-cop movie where one of the partners is Death in disguise is (sadly) totally fictional.
The romance novel Carole is reading is fictional, but the lovers' names are a reference to the Puccini opera La Boheme.
CSI
The Simpsons
Legally Blonde (Which I hold in much higher regard than Finn).
Aliens
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Singin' in the Rain
My Fair Lady
Sesame Street
Once Upon A Mattress
Alien: Resurrection
Teen Wolf
Serendipity
Thirteen Ghosts

Characters mentioned:
Ms. Defoe, Mr. DeMartino, Mr. O'Neill, Ms. Barch, Kevin Thompson and Trent Lane are all borrowed from Daria.

Lastly, the concept and basic plot structure for this fic were inspired by the 2001 film Ghost World.

ETA: In response to numerous requests I have received in reviews, I apologise but I have no immediate plans to write a sequel to this particular fic. I will, however, continue to write Winn fics.

Also, in response to a particular review pointing out a supposed 'mistake' in the timeline, I felt it worthwhile to specify that this fic is set in 2001 and so all dates mentioned are counted from that timescale, not our own.