A/N: I know that this isn't the week for this story, but I'm having trouble with 'If Bullfrogs Had Wings', so bonus chapter of this one. Yay!
Kurt POV
It wasn't until the next morning that I really understood what Dad had been saying. Finn was sitting on the steps waiting for me, just like always. His backpack was next to him, and he was wearing jeans and his old, black, jacket. All of that was the same. Finn was exactly how he always was, right down to the Pop Tart he was nibbling on. The same Pop Tart that he crammed into his mouth whole when he saw me pulling up to the house. He was exactly the same as he had been yesterday, and the day before that. Except he wasn't.
It wasn't the way he moved, or his face, or what he was doing. It was all of those things and none of them at once. Just like Dad had said, Finn was different, at least to me.
He hurled himself in the seat next to me, barely having the energy to kiss me hello. "So, you're probably going to be pissed at me."
Those words were never the start of anything good. "I might be, but I might not be. Why don't you tell me what's going on?"
"Mom kind of knows what we did." He slumped down in the seat. "She was waiting for me last night, and we had the most humiliating talk ever."
Or so he thought. "I'm not mad at you, considering that this might be my fault. Dad knows, too, and he might be the one who called your mother."
Finn gave a visible shiver. "I'm a dead man. Your father knows that I, like, besmirched you, and now he's going to kill me. 16 is way too young to die!"
"Finn, chill. Dad is not going to kill you, or me for that matter. I was subjected to a talk about as humiliating as the one you got, but no one is going to die. By the way, who taught you how to use 'besmirch'?"
He squinted at me. "Was I wrong?"
"No, you used it perfectly. I was just wondering where you heard the term."
"From you." He stretched lazily.
"From me?" I searched through my memories, but couldn't come up with any time I had used that term. "Are you sure?"
"Uh-huh. You said that Alexander McQueen's tribute absolutely besmirched his memory. Then you said that besmirched meant made it all ruined and not pure any more."
"So you think you ruined me?" I was pretty sure that that wasn't what he meant, but I had to be sure.
"No. I think you're even sexier now. But your Dad is going to think that I did." He looked at me with serious eyes. "Do you want to run away to Mexico together? We could change our names and escape. I could be Raul, and you could be Carlos."
If it came down to it, I would follow Finn anywhere. But it wasn't coming down to it yet. "Don't you think I would stick out a little in Mexico? Look at this skin!"
"Oh, yeah." He was all dreamy eyed when he looked at it. "I guess it does look a little pale. But you know what? I might need to taste it to be sure."
"Hold your horses, Cowboy." I put a hand on his chest to push him back. "Does what happened the last time you attempted to get busy with me in a moving vehicle come to mind?"
"Maybe." He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. "We could put it in park."
He was cute when he was horny. "Then we'll be late for school, which will necessitate a phone call to each or our parents, which will lead to my father wondering why I was late, and concluding that you're besmirching me again. Is that really what you want?"
"No." I mentally counted down from three, and, sure enough, he heaved a gusty sigh when I hit one. "Parents are kind of a cock block."
I agreed, but I knew that telling him so would be a mistake. At least one of us had to pretend to be mature in this relationship. "Did you honestly think that we would do nothing but have sex from now on? That our every waking moment would be consumed with nothing but our penises and a lot of lube?"
He gave me a pitiful sigh. "No." Then he brightened considerably. "But I kind of hoped so."
He could hope all he wanted, but that didn't mean it was going to happen. "Do I look like Noah Puckerman to you?"
"Ew! If you looked like Puck, I would never want to touch you again. You look like Kurt, and you look really good naked, so that's good enough for me."
Even if I live to be 100, I will never understand how Finn can melt my heart with just a few words. "I love you, Cowboy."
"Love you, too." He sounded vaguely puzzled, just like he always did when I insisted on telling him how much I loved him.
As I've undoubtedly said before, Finn's a simple creature. I loved him. He knew I loved him. I had told him that I loved him. He had told me he loved me. Anything beyond that was overkill. But he would always tell me he loved me, because he knew that I needed to hear it.
It was that one small exchange, more then anything else, that cemented in my mind what I had to do now. If none of the adults in his life would protect him, and Finn wasn't able to protect himself, it fell to me. I would do this, because I had to. "Finn?"
"What's up?" He wrapped an arm around me, the backs of his fingers rubbing the side of my neck.
"I'm…I'm not going to be at lunch today, alright? I have some extra credit for PE, and I'm doing it during lunchtime. So you don't need to be looking for me." There it was, my last chance to back out, gone.
"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you? I don't like you being near that gym by yourself. I can skip lunch for once."
If I ever needed proof of his love, this was it. "No, Cowboy, I'll be fine. I'll text you right after, so you'll know I'm ok."
"If you're sure…" He sounded incredibly disappointed, no doubt upset that he wasn't going to get the chance to play my knight in shining armor. Under any other circumstances, I would have been happy to let him do it, but I wasn't going to be doing any sort of extra credit today. I just needed an excuse to be near the gym. I could do this, for Finn.
"I'm sure. But I'll see you in social studies, ok?" I tried to keep my voice from shaking.
"Ok." We were at school by now, so any more conversation was stilted and awkward. Neither one of us were sure how to interact in front of other people, and it showed. But one day…
One day what? One day you'll be able to walk down the hallways of this school holding Finn's hand and have it all be alright? Because that isn't going to happen, flat out. Or did you mean that one day you and Finn will be good at having these little conversations that don't mean anything, just so you can cover up what you do mean and can't say? Because I'm not seeing either one of these things as being good or likely.
One day I would be in New York, with Finn by my side and I would be able to do these things. So there, Ms. Galinda.
Whatever.
As it turned out, I didn't need to go to the gym after all. Mr. Shue and Coach Sylvester were having it out right by my locker. I pretended I was spinning the dial while Mercedes and I listened in.
Blah, blah, blah, bad influence. Blah, blah hair, blah, blah. Evil, blah, blah. Blah, blah biddy blah, coach of the worst club in the school. This was usual for one of their fights, and I was just about to give up eavesdropping when I heard a single word that commanded all of my attention. Madonna.
Galinda squealed, and I barely restrained myself from doing the same. Like any self respecting gay boy, I loved Madonna for her theatricality, if nothing else. She defied gender, defied customs, defied everything. The thought of being able to perform Madonna in Glee all but made me swoon. From the way she was squirming next to me, I had an idea that Mercedes felt the same.
Apparently the fight was stemming from the fact that Mr. Shuester wanted to use Madonna's work in the Glee club, but Coach Sylvester was already using it for the Cheerios. They bickered on for another few seconds, with Mr. Shue correctly informing her that Madonna was public domain, and her threatening to destroy him.
Then it turned ugly. For what felt like the millionth time, Coach Sylvester insulted Mr. Shue's hair. But this time, he turned on her and insulted her right back. I never would have thought I'd see the day, but there was actual hurt in her eyes when he referred to it as the Florence Henderson look. For a split second, I felt bad for her. I knew what it felt like to have the way you looked picked on, and it was never fun.
Gee, I don't think she looked any more hurt then Finn did when she attacked him. At least Mr. Shue had the excuse of being her equal and having his temper aroused. Finn's a child and under her control, and she went after him anyway.
That was right. I had to remember that I was doing this for Finn, and nothing else mattered. Still, a direct confrontation might not be the answer here. After all, what had direct confrontation ever gotten me but a rainbow of slushies and a panoramic view of the inside of every dumpster in the school? Subtlety might be key.
I grabbed Mercedes by the hand. "I need a favor."
"Ooh, is it going to be fun?" From her tone, I guessed she was still caught up on the Madonna idea.
"No." My voice was breathy and scared. "Actually, it might get us killed. But you're my best friend and I need you to do this for me. We're going after Coach Sylvester."
"You are going to owe me so big for this. But, in the name of friendship, I'll do it. But if I end up dying a virgin, Kurt Hummel, I will spend the rest of eternity bashing your head in with my golden harp, got it?"
"Got it." My hands felt cold when I squeezed hers, but I was going to see this through to the end.
We managed to catch up to Coach Sylvester right outside her office. She was tripped up by the fact that it required no less then four keys to open it, which had her stalled out. "Coach Sylvester? We want to talk to you." I was proud of how steady my voice was, even though the rest of me had picked up a slight tremble.
Her eyes roved over the pair of us, narrow and untrusting. But we must have seemed nonthreatening, because she signaled us inside. "Sit."
Nervously, we sat side by side, watching as she took her place behind her desk. I laced my fingers together so she couldn't see my hands shake. All rational arguments had fled my mind, so I was grateful when she spoke first.
"You know, kids, I grew up with a handi-capable sister. My parents were famous Nazi hunters, so they weren't around a lot. I had to bring her up on my own."
I was never sure how much of Coach Sylvester's stories I should believe, but this one had a ring of truth to it. Breath held, I leaned forward to hear the rest.
"I didn't have a lot of time or money to keep up with all the latest looks. But on my 6th birthday, True Blue was released, an album that would later sell over 30 million copies."
I knew all of this already (again, is there anything a gay boy doesn't know about Madonna?), but I kept it to myself. Sue Sylvester actually had a soul, who would have thought it?
"My sister and I took it upon ourselves to bleach my hair with whatever chemicals we could find around the house. Ammonia, Napalm...my hair was so damaged I've been forced to wear it short ever since."
The thought of putting either one of those chemicals within 20 feet of my own hair was almost enough to make me pass out. The only thing keeping my upright was the thought of what she would do to me if I actually fell over. "It's been a daily, ongoing pain."
"That would make you, like, 30" Mercedes sounded shocked, but I wasn't surprised. All witches know spells to mask their true age.
"29. And here's the truth: I mercilessly pick on Will Shuster's lustrous, wavy, hair because I'm jealous. There, I said it."
An unbelievable opportunity had just been laid at my feet. I had a chance to get in her good graces and fulfill my dreams of playing hair stylist on someone besides myself and Mercedes? Thank you, Prada, thank you! Thinking as quickly as possible, I resorted to flattery, emotional sharing, and flat out bribery to get everything I wanted.
Within the next half hour, I had convinced Coach Sylvester to let me do her hair and give her a new look. My mind was already swirling with the possibilities. There were so many ways a woman could wear short hair without looking like…well, without looking like a gym teacher. We had the plan all but hashed out when the real reason I had wanted to talk to her came rushing back to me. "Wait, I have one more demand before we go any further."
Her eyes were narrow, and I knew this could go either way. I straightened up and stared her right in the eyes. "Leave Finn alone. I mean it. Don't talk to him, don't pick on him, and don't ever do anything to him like you did right before Sectionals. It's not fair to make him a pawn in your war with Mr. Shue."
Mercedes went tense against me, and I wondered if I had finally pushed things too far. But confronting Sue had been my plan all along, the only thing that mattered. With everything Finn had done for me, I owed him this one small thing back.
"Done. Dimbulb is now off the table as a pawn. I reserve the right to tease, harass and intimidate him for my own pleasure, but I will not use him to bother William Shuester." Suddenly a feral smile curved her lips. "You know, I like your fire Gay Kid. It's not every student, or even any student, who's willing to face down the big bad wolf just to defend his boyfriend. Stand up!" The command was so sharp and unexpected that I found myself obeying before I though about it. "You, too, Aretha."
I tried not to cringe as she circled us critically, making little noises to herself as she did so. They didn't sound like happy noises, but there as a smile on her face when she was done. "I have a proposition for both of you."
I was pretty sure that this proposition involved my imminent death, but I faced her bravely. "Ok."
"The three of us join forces for more then just this video. Aretha, you have an impressive set of pipes on you, and you-" She pointed at me "- I've seen how flexible you are in PE class, not to mention your voice. This could be exactly what I need to clinch the Nationals this year."
Luckily, Mercedes understood exactly what she w as talking about, since I had no idea what was going on. "You want Kurt and I on the Cheerios?"
"Of course. In return, I can offer all the protection from the mouth breathing paramecium infesting this school that Will Shuester doesn't. Not to mention, an actual chance at winning something this year. Come on, what do you say?"
Um, Kurt? You do understand what's happening here, right? She's not going to bother Finn any more, and she doesn't need to. You know why? She's getting ready to put you and Mercedes in his place! Yes, I know you love glory, and glittery, shiny trophies, but do you honestly think she cares about you at all? She's using you to get what she wants.
Had that ever been in question? Of course I knew that Coach Sylvester wanted me for nothing more then her own glory. But was that so bad? At least it was honest, and what was that old saying about keeping friends close but enemies closer?
Aren't you forgetting someone? Someone who was the entire reason for chasing Coach Sylvester down the hallway? Someone whose feelings would be incredibly hurt if you just went into cahoots with someone who has already hurt him so badly?
That brought me back to reality with crushing quickness. Finn. How could I possibly present this to him in a way that didn't sound like exactly what it was: me putting my own desires above his and turning to the one person he hated in the entire world.
Just talk to him. Putting yourself first sometimes isn't a bad thing, and Finn's pretty easygoing when it comes to you. Maybe you'll get lucky and he'll be over his grudge.
"Well? This isn't an opportunity I offer just anyone." Sue didn't sound particularly concerned with our replies. After all, how could anyone dare to turn her down?
"If Kurt's down with it, I am." Mercedes was looking to me for a cue, but I was frozen.
"Kurt?" Hearing her actually use my name threw me off balance and I suddenly couldn't remember if that was even my name.
"I….I….I can't." My throat unlocked and I found that I could speak again. "Not without talking to Finn about it. Can I let you know by the end of the day?" By the end of the sentence, my voice trembled and broke.
She rolled her eyes. "Not like that! Where's that spark from a few minutes ago? If you want something demand it, don't ask for it! Do you think I got where I am today by asking for things?"
No. I was pretty sure that she had gotten where she was today by a scheme of backstabbing, lying, and stomping on the little man so complex that it would dazzle even Einstein. But the advice was sound, so I tried again, making my voice strong. "I'll let you know at the end of the day. I have to see if joining the Cheerio's fits in my schedule."
"Well. There's hope for you yet." She swooped forward and I wasn't able to prevent myself from jolting backwards and slamming into Mercedes. "I'll expect your reply by no later then 3:15 today, do I make myself clear." At our frightened nods, she jerked her head towards the door. "Now get out of my office."
We fled, neither one of us able to speak until we were halfway across the campus. Mercedes looked me in the eye. "Did that just happen?"
It took a minute more for me to find my voice. "I think so."
"Are we going to do it?" Her eyes were sparkling, no doubt blinded by the visions of actually being on the winning side for once.
"Do you think we should? I mean, this could be the Glee club's only chance on infiltrating the enemy camp. I know we can do it physically, and another elective, particularly one with such a good record, would look good on college applications." I tried not to sound too excited.
I was trying to be as thorough as possible while I thought about this. For once, my small size and skinny body would be something to strive for, rather then a complete disadvantage. I had seen the Cheerio's practice routines often enough, so I knew that I could do it physically. As long as I kept in mind that Sue Sylvester was not, and never would be, on my side, this could actually be a good thing.
Whatever you have to tell yourself. You know why I think you want to do this? I think that, deep down; you want the popularity that comes along with being on the Cheerios. You're sick of being the lowest rung on the social ladder, and you see this as your chance to jump up a few notches.
Maybe, but what was wrong with that? Didn't everyone secretly dream of being popular? Of having heads turn when they walked by, and not just because they were wearing something that wasn't purchased at Wal-Mart?
Nothing's wrong with it. But don't pretend that this is for the Glee club, or for Mercedes, or even for Finn. It's ok to want things for yourself, but at least be honest about it.
"I agree." Mercedes' hands found mine. "I think we should do it."
With each passing second, I wanted it more. But I had to remember why I had asked for a few minutes to think in the first place. "I have to talk to Finn."
"What if he says no?" She only sounded curious.
"I…I don't know." I really didn't. I really wanted to do this, but if Finn didn't' want me to, was I wiling to give up, just like that? Finn and I had never had a real fight, not since we had become an actual couple, and I didn't want this to be what drove us apart. But what if keeping Finn happy meant making myself unhappy?
How about you actually talk to him before you just tie yourself in knots?
Luckily, I knew Finn's schedule as well as I knew my own, and I knew that he was in math right now. I also knew that he sat by the window and spend most of his time staring vacantly at the parking lot. Which made it an easy task to go outside and signal him to join me.
He nodded and raised his hand to be excused. Less then five minutes later, there he was, ambling out the door. One arm wrapped around my shoulders and I was pulled back against a huge body. "I told the teacher I was about to puke, so she let me go for the rest of the period. Puck, too, since he was supposed to be taking me to the nurse."
"Can we go sit in the car for a while?" Finn's eyes lit up at that thought, and I hastened to clarify. "Not for that."
"Sure. But don't you have to go do your extra credit?" That was Finn, naively believing whatever someone told him.
"There was no extra credit. Car, please?" My voice was already shaky and on the verge of tears, something that Finn had no trouble picking up on.
"Of course, Dude." We didn't make it 10 feet before his eyes narrowed and he pulled me around to look him in the face. "Did someone hurt you? Are you bleeding?" He ran quick, capable, hands over my body, looking for injuries. "I'll fucking kill him if he touched you."
There was no point in telling Finn that 'he' could mean any number of people, not just Karofsky. True, David of the Damned was the biggest bully, but there were dozens, of people who had shoved me, teased me, tossed me in dumpsters, and just plain made my high school career a living hell. I pushed his hands away. "I'm fine, Finn. No one touched me."
Finn's face told me that he didn't quite believe me, but he let it go until we were in my car. I had already put the backseats flat after my last shopping spree, so there was plenty of space for us both to sit down. Finn stretched his legs out in front of himself. "Now what's up? Tell me what's wrong."
"I…" I stopped because I wasn't sure how to say this.
"You?..." He tried to gently prompt me, but it wasn't working. How does one go about telling his boyfriend that the one person he despises above all others was now trying to manipulate me?
Thanking all possible (however implausible) gods, for tinted windows, I crept across the floor and straddled Finn's lap, my arms wrapped around his body and my cheek against his chest. He squeezed me tightly. "Tell me."
"You'll hate me." I was whimpering now, and I could hear Coach Sylvester groaning in the back of my mind, telling me to suck it up and act like a man, or did I think Finn was sexually attracted to little boys? "I don't want you to hate me."
"Did you kill someone?" Finn was clearly unsure of how to handle his boyfriend suddenly bursting into tears like a little bitch. I wiped the tears from my eyes and shook my head. "Ok, that's good. Uh, did you cheat on me?"
"Never. Who would I cheat with?" There was no one who could compare to Finn, ever.
He kissed the top of my head. "Then I won't hate you. Really, Kurt, it can't be any worse then my imagination. Wait, you didn't kick a puppy did you? Because that would just be mean."
"I told Coach Sylvester off." The words came out so quickly that Finn had to mentally rerun them at least twice before he understood.
When he did, though, he gave me a huge grin. "You did? God, I wish I had seen that! But why does that make you upset? Did she say something really mean back?"
"No. She wants me and Mercedes to join the Cheerios."
The smile fell off his face, replaced by an almost animal wariness. "Did you tell her to kiss your ass?" His voice was suspicious, like he already knew that I hadn't.
"Not exactly." I was cringing now.
"Kurt! You didn't tell her yes, did you?" He tried to push away from me, but, with his back against the doorframe, there was nowhere for him to go. "Why would you do that!"
He wasn't exactly yelling, but it was close enough that I curled protectively around myself. If he decided to lunge at me right now, I would have absolutely no protection.
He won't hurt you. This is Finn, and he might attack any number of inanimate objects, but he won't do anything to you. But, seeing as this is Finn, it might be a good idea to look at what he isn't doing, as opposed to what he is.
That was never a bad idea with Finn. What wasn't Finn doing? He wasn't telling me that he understood why I wanted to do this. He wasn't asking what Sue Sylvester saw in some stupid, scrawny little gay kid that no one else cared about. He wasn't doing anything but leaning back against my doorframe and staring at me with big, hurt, eyes.
But then it hit me. He wasn't telling me that there was no way he would let me do this. He wasn't saying that if I did it, it was over between the two of us. And, most importantly, he wasn't forcing me away from him. It was a fine distinction, wanting to move himself away from me as opposed to moving me away from him, but I saw it all the same.
I had been mentally rehearsing what I would say to him when he asked why. I had an entire, impassioned, speech in my head, one where I lined out my plan to function as a double agent (possibly telling Finn that I would be like a ninja double agent, because there's nothing Finn likes more then ninjas) and thus benefit the Glee club. Or how this was how I was going to buy myself more protection, even though he was doing a great job, but this would fill in for the times he couldn't help me. Or even how I needed something more then 'sings in failing Glee club' and 'can identify every dumpster in McKinley High School from the inside' on my college application.
But Finn would see through that. As dumb as he can be, and sometimes it astounds even me, he's uncannily clever when it comes to figuring out exactly what you don't want him to. So I just pressed my forehead against his collarbone and listened to his heart beat under my cheek. It was jagged at first, no doubt the result of the anger he was trying to hide from me. But if he could read me, I could read him just as well, and his tense muscles and irregular heart gave him away. "Why?" It was very soft, which was how Finn always talked when he was trying not to scream.
"I could be good at it." It wasn't what I intended to say at all, but it had the unmistakable ring of truth. "Most of the male Cheerio's are way bigger then I am, so if she needs a boy to be tossed, I'm built for it." I refrained from telling him that I had already had plenty of practice being tossed in dumpsters, as he well knew.
"Spider Monkey…." He suddenly sounded tired, like this conversation was just too much for him.
"You don't think so?" That hurt. Even if he didn't think I could do it, it was Finn's job as my boyfriend to at least pretend that he thought I could.
"I think you're great at everything you try. But you could be the most awesome Cheerio in the entire world, and I still wouldn't want you to do it. She'll make you different, not Kurt any more. Not my Spider Monkey." Finn was speaking slowly and carefully, obviously having to struggle for each word.
I kissed him, both because I loved him and to buy myself some time to think. "She won't. I'll always be your Spider Monkey, and Sue Sylvester isn't going to change that."
"She changed Quinn." It wasn't much bigger then a whisper. "Quinn was always a little mean, but she made her really cruel. She's really sneaky, and she'll make you turn on people, even your friends, before you really know what's going on."
It took me a minute to realize that that last part was referring to Coach Sylvester again instead of Quinn. "You can keep that from happening. I think, between the two of us, we can outmaneuver one evil cheerleading coach."
He smiled at me, but it was as sad little thing, the corners of his mouth lifting like they were on strings that could be dropped at any minute. "You're going to do it then, no matter what I say."
Here it was, the moment of truth. "Will you tell me not to?" I was still in his lap, pinning his legs to the floorboards.
"No. If you want to do it, do it." One hand was rubbing my back now, fingers lightly tracing my ribs. "But please be careful. I don't want you to get eaten by the Sue-beast. You're…there won't be another you."
That was it? No screaming, no yelling, no huge drama? Just this mild permission coupled with a soft warning? I looked at Finn's face, trying to get a better sense of what was happening, but he was looking across the car, out one of the windows. Without his eyes to give me a clue, I couldn't read his thoughts. "Just like that?"
When Finn finally looked down at me, I saw the man he was going to be one day in the shadowy depths of his eyes and the slight quirk of his lips. "Just like that."
I was pushing my luck here, but I had to know. "Why?"
"You don't ask for very much. I would give you anything in the world, even my X-box, except I kind of had to give that to Puck for two weeks, and please don't ask why, because you'll freak out. But I would get it back for you, if you wanted it. But you don't. You don't want snacks, and you don't want video games and you don't want anything else I can give you. You want fashion things and hair stuff and all the crap I don't know anything about, so I can't give it to you. All you ever asked for is me, so I gave you that." He broke off to give me his usual dopey grin, and that adult was gone, leaving my Finn in his place. "By the way, that was awesome, and you can have me whenever you want. All the time. Right now if you want to."
I wasn't sure if he was deliberately trying to lighten the mood, or if his mental train had genuinely jumped the track, but I decided to help him out. "Finn, how often do people commit sexual congress in our school parking lot?"
"All the time." Hope brightened his eyes. "We should do it, too."
"Stick with me here. How do you know that people use our parking lot like a disgustingly well lit and obvious lover's lane?" The thought of having sex not only in my car, but with 2,000 potential witnesses just 100 yards away was not exactly a turn on for me.
He chuckled. "Dude, everyone can tell! It's pretty obvious when you look out the window and one of the cars is bouncing up and down and-oh. That's why you don't want to do it in the car, right?"
It was one of many reasons, but things would just be easier if Finn thought it was the only one. "Right. Now, can we get back to what you said a second ago? About me not asking for much?"
That earned me a shrug. "Well, you don't."
I asked Finn for thing all the time! I asked for….I searched my memory, trying to think of anything. There were tiny things, like a coffee, or for him to use his greater height get me something I couldn't reach myself (ok, confession time. Sometimes I asked him to get things in the bottom cabinets, too, just so I could watch him bend over to do it. What can I say; he's got a cute ass.). But big things? I guessed not. There was still a part of me that was so shocked that I had Finn at all that I was almost afraid to ask him for anything larger.
There was more though, and, for once, Finn had nailed it without any help from me. I didn't usually ask Finn for much, because I already had him, and that was enough. Anything else was minor. Until now. But Finn had barely blinked, and certainly not thrown the tantrum I would have if our positions had been reversed, before he agreed to have me on the team. I kissed across his throat, telling him without words how much I loved him. "You don't ask for much either."
"Don't need much." The words came out with a disinterested shrug.
It was true. Finn wasn't particularly interested in having thing just to have them. He wanted things that he could use. Granted, things that he could use also included things like incredibly violent X-box games, chips full of salt and empty calories, and ever ugly T-shirt that Abercrombie made, but I guessed those things served a purpose to him. He was incredibly attached to the things he already had, and didn't usually have much interesting in new stuff. It made him frustrating to get gifts for, even though he always insisted that he didn't want anything.
Finn would never say it out loud, not even to me, but there were times when I suspected that that was true, but not the entire truth. I had seen him eyeball the expensive laptops or the video games that he would always tell me he would just borrow from Mike. Most of all, I saw the hopeful way he looked at my car, even though he very seldom had any interest in driving it. Sometimes I thought it wasn't so much that Finn didn't desire these things, but that he knew that Carole couldn't just provide them for him on a whim. There were bills to pay and food to be bought and there was no help coming in from a husband, just what she do herself. Therefore, it was easier for him to just pretend that he had never wanted them at all, just so she wouldn't feel badly that she couldn't provide for him the way she thought she should.
Sometimes I would buy him a video game and tell him that I knew he could borrow it from Mike, but I thought he might like his own copy, since Mike had leant his to Matt anyway. Usually at my own suggestion. For all that he claimed he didn't want the game, Finn's smile when he got it could light the sun.
Speaking of Finn, he had just given me a quick nudge. "Anyway, we were talking about you. You don't ask for very much, but you asked for this and I can give it to you,
so I am. That's all there is to it."
And this was the boy that everyone thought was stupid. "You have a very forgiving nature, Finn."
"I don't. I hate her." He looked down so we were making eye contact, just so there was no question. "I hate her. Yeah, I mean, its Mr. Shue's fault the most, because he did it, but what he did was, like, a crime of passion. He thought he was doing what was best and no one was going to get hurt. And I still kind of hate him for that, anyway, just not as much as I did. But what she did was worse. It was wrong, and she knew it was wrong, but she did it anyway. And she waited. That's the bad part, Kurt. She waited until she knew it would hurt everyone the most and then she said something. It wasn't about hurting him, or hurting me. It was about hurting everyone, even though it wasn't their faults. That's why I want you to be careful. Because she'll make you into something you aren't, and that something won't be good."
"I won't let her." I was still squeezing him, but this time he gently disentangled me to look me in the face.
"I hope not. But if she does, I reserve the right to bust out my ninja moves and kick her ass."
See? I told you Finn likes ninjas. "I'm pretty sure Coach Sylvester could not only kick your ass, but kick the ass of every person in this school, not to mention both the US and Canadian armies."
"Probably." Then his face lit in a sneaky grin that was nothing like his usual dopey one. "So, this is actually kind of awesome."
I was very, very afraid of what he might tell me. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. You know why?" He was trying to suppress laughter.
"Because I'll be able to function as a double agent like James Bond?" Really, I had no idea, but I was willing to play this game if he wanted.
"Nope. Try again."
"I don't know. Because you think I look good in red?"
"No. Well, yeah, but that wasn't what I was thinking of."
"Because this means you'll have an excuse to hang around Cheerio's practice like a creepy stalker?" The thought of Finn staring at me like Jacob Ben Israel at the girls was simultaneously disgusting and a turn on.
"Closer, but not exactly." He rolled up onto his knees, stretching lazily.
"I don't know, Finn, tell me why this is a good thing." I smiled and kissed his cheek, so he would know that I wasn't angry with him.
His sudden movement caught me off guard, the way he pulled my back into his lap for a messy, possessive kiss. This was nothing like what I had just given him, this was him telling me he loved me, wildly, forever. This kiss was passion distilled.
Being caught off guard didn't mean I stayed off guard, and there was no way that I was about to let Finn Hudson get the better of me. I kissed him back with as much passion as I could muster, trailing down his neck and over his collarbone. He shivered appreciatively, but pulled me back up so my mouth was on his again.
The kiss went on and on, with both of us sneaking little sips of air just so we wouldn't have to break apart. Finally I got so lightheaded I had to push him back. He was breathing hard, his lips swollen and his eyes dark, but there was still a devilish smile lurking in the corners of his mouth. When he finally spoke, it was to say that last, but most Finn-like, thing I expected. "Dude, I thought my days of trying to screw Cheerios were over!"
I smacked him with my jacket.