I Drive Your Truck

Based on the song by Lee Brice

Set post-Glee Season 5, loosely AU

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.

It was raining the day Carole gave me the keys.

She didn't say much — just stood there on the porch with her cardigan sleeves pulled down over her hands like she used to when we were kids and she was cold but trying to pretend she wasn't. She looked smaller than I remembered, like the grief had worn her down from the inside out. And her hand… it was shaking when she held out the keys.

"He'd want you to have it," she said. "You're his brother, too."

I didn't know what to say to that. Still don't. So I just nodded, took the keys, and drove off before I could cry in front of her.

Now?

There's eighty-nine cents in the ashtray, still there from God knows when. Finn always left change around, said it was good karma. A half-empty bottle of blue Gatorade rolls around on the floorboard, and I can't bring myself to throw it out. The Braves cap is still up on the dash, dusty and sun-faded, and the dog tags clink against the mirror like wind chimes every time I hit a bump.

His Go Army shirt is folded in the back seat — yeah, still got that smell. His boots are there too, beaten to hell and back, scuffed like they went through a war even if he never got to. And that old Skoal can he use to pretend he used? Yeah. That's there too. It's all still him.

Sometimes I turn the key and just sit there with the engine running, listening to the radio station he left it on. Country music. Dumb, cheesy, way-too-emotional country music.

But it's his.

So I listen.

This truck drinks gas like a frat guy drinks beer, but I don't care. When the days get too long and the nights too loud, I grab the keys and hit the road. Windows down. Radio up. Heart wide open.

I drive with no destination. I just… go. Burn rubber down every back road I can find. Lima, the outskirts of Columbus, and even once out to Toledo. Doesn't matter. If the wind's loud enough, I don't have to think. Don't have to feel anything but the wheel in my hands and the ache in my chest.

There's a field just off Route 7. Finn and I used to fish out there when we were like fifteen. I don't even slow down when I see it — I just yank the wheel and let the truck fly into it. I tear that field up until there's dust in the air and sweat on my face, and I can barely see from the tears stinging my eyes.

I know what he'd say if he saw me like this.

"Dude. You crying?"

And he'd punch my arm, all soft and playful, trying to make me laugh.

But I am crying. And I can't laugh. Not today.

Your mom asked me this morning if I'd been by the cemetery. I lied and said no. Truth is, I've been more than once. Sat there until my legs went numb and my fingers started digging into the grass like they were trying to find him under the dirt.

But that's not where I feel him.

I feel him here — in this truck. In the creak of the brakes, in the hum of the engine, in the twang of some dumb country song he'd belt out off-key just to make me roll my eyes.

He's not a flag and a stone. He's a memory that rides shotgun.

I've cussed. I've prayed. I've yelled until my voice cracked. Punched the steering wheel. Asked God what the hell kind of plan takes a guy like Finn and leaves people like me still breathing.

But when I miss him too much to handle?

I drive his truck.

And maybe he's watching.

Maybe he's laughing at me.

Or maybe, just maybe, he's riding with me — window down, cap backwards, elbow out the window like he always used to do.

Sometimes... I drive his truck.

And somehow, that's enough.

END