4: Date Night

Unfortunately, the world as it is goes on. Football, Glee, school, friends, family, blah blah blah. Finn can't help but feel like the world is out of step; like it's all gotten a little blurry – he can make out the details pretty easily if he tries, but it's annoying.

Falling somewhere between the 'friends' and 'family' category (Finn hasn't decided which is more appropriate yet) is Kurt. Finn is mostly okay with him – he's trying to be anyway, because it's not his fault what...

Finn's trying really hard not to think about it.

Anyway, the thing about Kurt is – he's everywhere. At school, at home, and he's so fucking happy with his life and friends and lack-of-being-thrown-into-dumpsters, and his fucking boyfriend, that Finn never gets any time to forget why he's doing this. He never gets a second to wallow, and think that he has every right to blab, and that he's the victim here. No, Kurt is always there, and Finn always knows that if he said a thing, he would ruin Kurt for good. And that would be so unfair – hasn't he caused Kurt enough pain already?

(Hold on, how is that fair. He didn't do anything to cause this, so why should he have to keep it secret for anyone else's sakes? Besides, Kurt was the one who fucking dragged Sam into everything anyway – let him see how he likes it when he realized how badly he fucked up.)

(That's not fair either. Kurt didn't know anything, and Finn's not going to let him know anything. It would break his heart.)

(Can he stop having epic mental debates now?)

Anyway, another unfortunate problem with Kurt dating Sam is that it means Sam is around. More than he would usually be, with football and school and everything. And Finn is trying to let it go; really, he is. But it's harder when he sees that face – never smug or cruel, no, just looking like a normal guy who's head-over-heels in love with Kurt – everywhere and he has to do his best not to curl up in a ball and cry like a baby, or maybe just drop dead.

And that's what Finn is thinking of, when Kurt announces that he and Sam are having some kind of movie marathon next Friday night.

"I hope you don't mind," Kurt directs at Burt and Carole. "I was planning we'd just stay in my room, try and keep the volume down."

Carole nods in acceptance, but Burt hesitates, eyes narrowing suspiciously. It takes a few seconds of awkward silence before Kurt gets it, lips forming an 'o' and winding up somewhere between blushing bright red and rolling his eyes. "God! Door open, dad, don't worry."

"Just make sure the boy knows I know how the breaks on his car work," Burt reminds him, Kurt sighs.

"He knows, Dad. You've only said it about fifty times."

Finn is currently doing his very best not to puke, and is mildly proud of himself when he manages to keep it to quietly gagging. Once he's recovered (without alerting anyone's attention; whoo-hoo), he has a question to ask. "When will he be here?"

"Uh, Friday? Didn't I just say that?"

"Know, I mean..." Finn takes a second. "What sort of timeframe?" Can I avoid him and the mental breakdown that comes with him?

"Er, well... We thought I'd just have him over, straight after school. I don't know when he'd leave; probably pretty late, when we got done with the movies. Still, you guys get along, right?"

Finn swallows the lump in his throat.

"Yeah."

He finds Rachel pretty quickly at school, and she beams when she sees him. "Hey," she says, leaning up (way up) to give him a peck on the lips before he can think of a reason for her not to. "Where've you been? You've barely talked to me; I kind of thought you were avoiding me." Her tone is light and joking, but her eyes look sort of probing – crap, did he fuck up with her again?

"Wait, was I?" he asks. He doesn't think he's been avoiding her – consciously, anyway. But he guesses all that boyfriend-girlfriend stuff (the kissing and the touching and everything) has been getting hard to deal with, and maybe he has been avoiding her a little, just so he doesn't do anything suspicious. So she doesn't get hurt. "Crap. Sorry, I guess I've been... busy."

She shrugs. "It's okay, I understand."

No, you don't! He wants to yell, but he doesn't. It's not her fault.

"Let me make it up to you," he says. "We should do something on Friday. Come over after school, and we'll just... go do whatever."

"What, exactly?"

"I don't know. That's the whole point," he insists, and she frowns.

"Do you mean directly after school? Because I told you, I have my class."

He can't help his face falling. "Oh," he says, and he knows he looks more upset right now that she should think he can be. Her face is somewhere between guilty and pissed off.

"Sorry, Finn. But... You did remember about that class, right?"

"Oh, of course!" he insists, much too quickly. He didn't, but maybe he was just repressing it in his hope of not having to deal for a few hours. "I just... I don't know, I lack thought sometimes."

"Don't I know it," she teases, and he pouts. "Anyway, we can do something when I get back – around 6:30?"

"Okay," he says, trying not to sound too let down. He can't let her know the real reason he wanted to do it so much, and besides, he really should be happy about going out with her. He always was before.

Before...

"Can we still not know what we're doing?"

She laughs. "Okay. Did we ever know what we were doing?"

"Nah, not really."

So that's how he winds up pacing the corridors of the Hummel-Hudson house that Friday night, caught half-way between avoiding and eavesdropping on the talk and laughter that comes from Kurt's room. Finn doesn't want to hear it, but he can't help it, and he doesn't know why.

He checks the clock again – six o'clock. In half an hour, he can just get out of here and pick up Rachel. Mom looked a little uncertain when he said he was taking his girlfriend to go do "we don't really know what" for "we don't really know how long", but after some convincing (aka. emotionally blackmailing her over the fact Burt was letting Kurt have his boyfriend in his bedroom all night, even though saying it made Finn feel sick) she agreed. He was awesome like that.

Finn taps his fingers on the wall, fidgety. He feels like he ought to be doing something right now (punching Sam's face in, for example) and he's not, and it really sucks.

Out of the corner of his eye, Finn sees Sam press a kiss to the top of Kurt's head – Kurt lightly reprimands him not to get saliva in his hair – and he clenches a fist.

It's 6:07 when Burt walks in, looking at Finn oddly. "Finn? Why are you standing around in the corridor?"

"What?" he responds, panicking and yelling. Sam and Kurt look up curiously from their place on the bed. "Oh, uh, nothing. I was just going to get, uh, food. From the kitchen."

"Kitchen's that way, son," Burt points in the opposite direction to Finn's facing. "And you were standing still."

"Uh..." Finn is lacking an excuse for that. "This house is big... I got lost."

Hey, he's dumb enough. Not like it hasn't happened before.

From inside, Sam smirks. "Protective big brother, huh?" he asks, and Finn can only stand there staring. "It's okay. I promise not to infringe upon his virtue."

And then Finn doubles over, coughing and wheezing, struck by the image of what could happen – Kurt, drugged and helpless, a roofied little bitch for Sam to spread and use any way he likes. With sudden clarity, Finn realizes that's an actual risk – he had been to stupid and selfish to realize it, but why wouldn't Sam hurt Kurt like that? The thought makes Finn want to throw up.

By the time he recovers, they are all staring at him, looking somewhere between concerned and pissed. "I have to..." he stammers out weakly, trying to regain his breath. "I have to... go."

And he runs out with twenty minutes to kill.