So, I wrote this thing and i don't even know why, but it came up very damn long, lol.
This chapter is like a fucking roaller coaster, you've been warned.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing."
"You promised"
"I know"
"Then what are you doing, Finn?"
"Nothing, Quinn, nothing, I swear-"
"You swore before, and you lied!"
"I didn't, I'm not... It's nothing!"
"You told me you'd never love anyone ever again, you promised, you swore you'd never-"
"I know, I know what I said. I'm not gonna break the promise."
"Don't lie to me, Finn Hudson!"
"I'm not lying to you, I am not!"
"Don't lie to me."
"I'm not, I promised... I..."
"You promised."
"I promised."
"What?"
"I promised, I'm... I'm so sorry, babe."
"For what?, Dude, stop it!"
"Quinn..."
"Quinn? oh God, no. Dude, wake up. Finn, wake up!"
And he does. He wakes up screaming, in cold sweats and tears... again. This is getting out of hand and sleeping at Puck's didn't work at all.
"What the fuck, man? When you told me you were having trouble with your sleep I never thought I'll have to deal with a talking zombie in my guest room!" Puck says with a worried voice.
Finn doesn't say anything. He's so ashamed and he doesn't know what to do anymore. Those nightmares keep hunting him and, lately, he can't seem to get Quinn out of his head.
She used to be a good memory, you know, like the kind of thought that makes you smile, because she was so fresh, shiny and angelical that you just can't help to remember her with joy.
But he's not thinking about her that way anymore. She comes to haunt him every night, claiming things. And he knows, he knows that's not her, that's not the way she used to be, she was never angry, she was the sunshine and the laughs, she'd never say that kind of things.
"Talk to me, man. What's going on? What's with Quinn?" Hearing her name in someone else's mouth just makes his heart ache even more, it makes her more real, and more dead.
"Nothing. It's nothing. Just a nightmare I've been having, no big deal." He says walking to the bathroom. Puck follows him.
"Don't give me that bullshit. Talk to me, why don't you talk to me anymore?"
"There's nothing to talk about, Puck, don't be such a girl."
"Are you kidding me right now, man?"
"Do I look like I'm kidding?" He says as he presses some cold water against his face.
"Why are you here then? Why did you come to my flat to ask me for a bed when you have your own? Some shit is wrong with that head of yours and you need to talk about it"
"It's nothing!" He screams, and his voice sound like a damn bomb. It's like 4:15 am, after all. "If you want me to leave, I'll leave If it bothers you so much. I just wanted to know if it could get better here but if it's such a pain in the ass for you I'll be out of here in no time" And he angrily walks past Puck and goes straight to the bedroom he was sleeping in. Again, Puck follows.
"I love you, man." Puck says from the door, when he spots Finn sitting on the edge of the bed with both hand on his face, "And you can count on me even if that means I'll have to deal with your screaming stuff. You're my bro and I'll be here. But it's fucked up that you're keeping your shit inside, dude. I'm not the most emotional dude on earth but even I know that."
"Puck..."
"Just think about it. Quinn should not be a nightmare anymore, Finn! and she's coming back at you because there's something else bugging you. Just... just think about it." Puck says wisely. Finn stays in that silent state that people get when they're being yelled at my their mom. "Fine. I'll be in my room anyways. Try'get some sleep, man, you look awful." He teases, Finn smiles a little. "'Night" And he leaves.
He doesn't sleep at all.
That day, they feel noises inside of the house again. It had been a while since the last time and they still don't get used to it. They never will.
"This is so wrong, man. I feel like I'm gonna puke." Puck says, angrily. Finn nods his head, not being able to speak. "We have to do something, like, seriously do something, man. This is not okay, I was not raised like this, for fuck's sake!."
"Come here, come here, Rachel!" Brody screams through the firs floor bathroom door, where she's locked.
"Love, love me do, you know I love you, I'll always be true, So please love me do!" She sings teasingly inside of the bathroom. "Sing with me, dear, I know you know the lyrics!" She screams and jumps a little at the sound of him kicking the door
"Don't fuck around with me!"
"You don't like that one? Then, how about something that suits you better? How about this one? 'I won't let you close enough to hurt me, no I won't-'"
"Shut the fuck up! Open the door!, Open the damn door, Rachel!" He screams while he kicks it strongly with his feet. She know he's gonna break it, it wouldn't be the first time he breaks a door when they're fighting, but somehow, she gains a little bit of time to prepare herself.
The truth is, she's fucking scared, she's breathing hardly and she's dizzy. She tells herself everyday that she's used to this, that this is not big deal, she has to learn how to deal with this, but it's still scary as hell... and it only gets worse with time.
She remembers the gun and she feels chills.
God, she hates when he skips his job to stay home for the day.
"I'm gonna break this fucking door and you'll see..." He whispers through one of the sides of it
"I'm waiting anxiously, babe." She says calmly, but her hands are sweating and her heart is about to pop out of her chest, and not in the good way.
"You started it this time and you fucking know it!"
"Oh my God!, You're right! I'll never mention yourlittle problem again in my life. I'll just ignore it." And she laughs strongly. If she was already in trouble, now she's gonna get killed.
The thought of it calm her down, somehow. Everything's gonna be over in a while.
And the she freak out again, what if he kills her this time?
"Oh keep going, just keep going! You're making it even more fun!" He screams as he beats up the hell our of the door.
"I'm waiting for you with my legs open, dear." She wats to stop doing that, but somehow, talking all that shit makes her feel like she's in control of the situation, like she has, somehow, the power over him. She doesn't, of course, but it's better than crying in a corner like in that movie.
She thinks about that movie now, "The shining", when Jack goes nuts with that axe and breaks the bathroom door to kill his wife and she's inside, freaking out and crying. She looks so scared, Rachel thinks, so pale and vulnerable. She doesn't wanna look like that. No.
But yeah, there's a difference between the two scenes. The woman in the movie was freaking out because her husband was possessed by some weird air in that hotel where people got murdered a long time ago. So, her husband is not a bad guy, he's just out of himself. Brody is just being a capital asshole. He's just evil.
He's about to open it and she knows what's coming for her. Nothing can stop this.
"Don't cry. Don't fucking cry." She whispers to herself as she hears the kicks on the door getting louder and the sound of the it cracking up a little "Be strong. It'll go away. Be strong. It'll go away." She repeats in her mind, like that's gonna save her.
"Rachel!" Brody screams.
"Please God... God?, am I turning to God?" The door cracks a little bit more "Holy damn, please God take me away from here. Make it stop. Make it stop!"
Before the door opens, she takes a nail file, sits in the closed toilet and starts to act calm, like nothing's happening. She's ready.
The door burst open. Holy shit she's not ready.
"There you are" He whispers. He's sweating and he's angry like a damn bull.
"Here I am. Let's get this over with-" And before she can finish the sentence, he snaps her in the face so hard that she ends up in the floor.
Her heart races and there's blood in her lower lip. She's not in the mood to tease him anymore. She just wants to go home to her dads. What would they think if they saw her like that? They sent her to New York to find her dreams, they waved proudly when she left on that plane with all of their savings of a lifetime. What would they think right now?
"They would be disgusted" she thinks in the fraction of a second "Oh God, I'm so sorry dads. I'm so sorry..."
She feels Brody's slow steps walking towards her, but she's not afraid anymore. "Sing now, you pretty girl, SING TO ME NOW!" He screams, grabbing her hair "You are gonna respect me, Rachel." He whispers to her ear "You owe me obedience"
"Whatever." She answers in a very neutral tone.
And then, just when she knows things are about to get worse, they don't. She hears a voice coming from the kitchen door.
Suddenly it becomes more clear, it's Noah's voice "Mr. Weston, we have a situation!"
"What the fuck?" Brody whipers, letting go of her hair "I'm busy right now, deal with it, for fuck's sake!"
"It's the car! The gray car from the last time you got threats."
Brody's face changes so fast that Rachel even feels like laughing. He gets pale at the single thought of that time he got dead threats from some weird organization a few months ago. She doesn't know what he's dealing with, though, and she doesn't want to, anyways. All she cares about is that her face and her head hurts like hell, and Brody's attention is somewhere else. Maybe God exists after all, she thinks.
"W-What? They are here? In the neighborhood?, How?" He says as he walks away from the bathroom, like she doesn't even exist.
And there, when she's lonely, crawling in the cold white floor, she feels the angst of the whole situation. And she cries. She covers her face with both hands and cries her eyes out, because she knows that this is just a brief hiatus... that he's gonna come back for more, and this time she's not even close to ready. She's terrified.
But they say that thing happen when you least expect them to, and she confirms it then, when the weirdest thing in the world happens.
"Miss Berry!" She hears from somewhere. "Miss Berry!" It's Finn's voice, coming from the outside of the window.
"Finn?" She asks with a broken voice "I don't need your pity. Go away" She says, crawling in the floor once again.
"Come out from the front door and get in the car. Quickly!" He whispers nervously.
"What?"
"Just do it!"
"Oh. Okay." And she doesn't even understand anything, she doesn't know why but she obeys. She stops crying and gets on her feet.
She walks slowly out of the bathroom, feeling the adrenaline running through her veins. What is she even doing? She doesn't know, but she likes it.
The car is, in fact, near the front door. So she gets in as fast as she can. There's Finn, waiting for her, but before she can even think about it, the car is moving fast towards the gate, wich is, by some weird magic, already open.
"What are we doing?" She asks, but he doesn't answer, and something tells her that he doesn't know either. Suddenly, she remembers the pain in her face again. Her eyes are swollen, her face is wet and her cheek is burning. "Jesus, this dude really doesn't understand the concept of 'Not the face'" She whispers to herself while she looks at the mess she is at the moment in the car mirror. "What would my fathers think if they saw me like this?" She mumbles "I'm a freaking mess. They'd puke over the sight of me" And a tear rolls down her cheek while she sights "Why are you even doing this? It's not worth it."
"Of course it is." Finn answers quickly
"Thanks." She says, and they stay silent for a while.
She was not paying attention to their direction, so she doesn't quite know where they are when he parks the car. She only sees a few giant empty houses with green front yards, but it's like a gohst town, she thinks, because no one is around.
She sees Finn getting a medium size white box from the back seat and then, when he opens it, she notices it's full of first aids stuff. "Come, let me see that." He says coldly, taking some alcohol and tissues. She look at him in awe, because she can't believe that she's here, in the middle of God knows where, being cured by her bodyguard.
He doesn't know how he got there either, though. One minute he's hearing Puck's plan to get Rachel out of there, the next he's hearing her cry from outside of the bathroom and the next they are here, in some fancy ass abandoned neighborhood, running away from her angry husband.
He doesn't know what the next step is, to be honest, he just wanted to save her. Not like he cares about her in some special level, no, it's just his job and stuff.
He tries to act calm, but his hands are shaking, he's so angry. He know she notices his concern and somehow he thinks she likes seeing him like this because she says nothing.
He takes a deep breath and takes the first aids kit he brought and, trying to seem professional, he asks her to let him see the wound. She silently agrees, so he pulls her face closer with his left hand and takes a closer look at her lip. The wound it's not that big and the blood is already dry, but it's a wound after all, and it was made by an angry husband, and that pisses him off to no end.
He pours some alcohol in a tissue and proceeds to rub it in her lip. She jumps a little and closes her eyes because of the pain.
"I'm sorry" He mumbles "I just-"
"It's okay. It's not your fault." She answers softly
He doesn't know what's the right thing to say right now, so he just goes with the first thing that comes to his mind, that happens to be "You don't deserve this."
"You don't know that." She snaps "Maybe I do." And she licks her lower lip teasingly.
He takes a look at her eyes and, just then, notices the small distance between them. The fact that his heart is not racing because of the rage, but because of her is freaking him out.
In that moment, when he's so close to her, when he can closely admire how beautiful she is, how soft her skin looks, he can't help but wonder how is that someone like her ends up with someone as disgusting as Brody. He wants to ask her, right there, and get it out of his chest. But he doesn't, because bodyguards don't ask that kind of thing.
"No, you don't." He continues, as he focuses in cleaning her blood again "Of course you don't."
"Do you wanna know why am I still with him?" She says, and he feels naked all of the sudden, like she's reading his mind somehow "I know you do." He says nothing. "He gives me my dream and I suck his dick. That's the deal." That was not what he was hoping to hear. It was anything but that.
"That's not my business." He answers, coldly, cleaning the last traces of blood of her chin.
"Kiss me." She mumbles, but he doesn't give credit to his ears. "Finn. Kiss me." She repeats.
But he doesn't. He can't.
He realizes then that she did it again, damn it, she managed to get him off guard and to pull him back into this sick teasing game. Why is he so weak? Why does he even feel like wants to kiss the fuck out of her?
"I can't." He whispers, staring deep into her eyes
She gets a little closer to him, and he doesn't know what to do, so he does nothing. His body is not answering and his brain feels like it's being electrocuted. "I know you want to." She says, touching his nose with hers.
"I don't."
"You're lying."
"Maybe."
And, in the fraction of a second, their lips collapse for the first time.
He thinks then, that some moments in your life you can't be described with words. That some moments are full with a thousand bombs exploding inside of your chest, and there, he thinks that Rachel Berry's lips are just beyond words.
He doesn't know how they got here, but he's not complaining. When he feels her lips pressed against his, everything else just seems like a bad memory. And then her lips part and their tongues meet, and he tastes a little bit of blood, but he doesn't care, because he knows he's not shaking because of rage this time. He knows his heart is racing like this because of something else. Rachel.
For a second or two, inside of the kiss, he feels like everything is falling into place fro the first time in years. When her right hand reaches his neck and his hand softly caresses her bruises, he just feel it. Peace.
But it's wrong. It's so wrong. He can't. What's he even doing? He's the damn bodyguard and nothing more than that. Nothing.
So he pulls apart from her as fast as his will alouds him, cursing his weakness "Miss Berry-"
"Mr. Hudson. Take me somewhere" She interrupts with a smile.
And, fuck, she's smiling. An award winning smile. An world-stopping smile. Rachel Berry is smiling again and he knows he can't deny her anything.
Then a song appears on his head again, clear as water
"You're the one that I wanted to find
And anyone who tried to deny you
Must be out of their mind"
"W-where?" He asks sheepishly, trying to silence the song. He clears his throat and, finally, decides to go back to working mode "I mean, Where do you want me to take you?"
"I don't know! I just want to do something. Lets do something!" She says brightly, like there's no bruises on her face, like they didn't just kiss. "I can't believe I ran away from Brody. I can't believe you saved me!"
"It was Puckerman's idea, to be honest." He snaps back, seriously
"I don't care. Take me away." She continues, still smiling. "Take me to Broadway, lets go watch something!"
"And anyone who tried to deny you
Must be out of their mind"
"I don't have any money for tickets, ma'am" He answers
"Come on! I'm Rachel Berry, They'll let me in." She snaps back
"Say no, say no"
"Finn?"
"Uh?"
"What do you say?"
"Uh... I-"
"Oh." She mumbles. He looks at her and there she is again. Terrified and dark Rachel. "You know. I'm gonna have to go back eventually and he's gonna be there." What did he just do? Why isn't she smiling anymore? "So it doesn't matter anyways. Just take me back." She says, looking out the window. "Let's go back, Finn. I'll talk to him and he's not gonna fire you. So just... yeah." And she says nothing more.
He doesn't know why and he doesn't actually care but in this moment, in this particular second, nothing in the world seems more important than making Rachel smile again. And it sounds cheesy to him, but the truth is that that smile made him forget about the nightmares. So fuck it, even if the world falls apart, he's must do something. Everything else is irrelevant.
So, with all the confidence in the world, he just says "I know a better place."
Reviews are the best part of writing a fanfic, people ;)
I'm sorry for the angst, though.
ps: it's a long chapter and i just finished it, so forgive me if it has a few spelling mistakes :c
ps 2: The song is "Green Eyes" by Coldplay. just in case. (amazing song, btw)