WIP - Perfect Sky is Torn
Title: Perfect Sky is Torn
Author: dark_dreymer
Part: 6/10 (So far)
Word Count: 6234
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, Language
Will's rational side told him, as he struggled to turn the the key in the stiff, stubborn lock, that it was silly to get excited by the sound of the telephone ringing. That it could very easily be a telemarketer or a wrong number, and simply because the phone happened to be ringing at the time Finn had promised to call did not mean for certain that it was his young lover at the other end of the line. Will's less rational side firmly told his rational side precisely where it could stick those negative justifications as he pushed open the front door and practically dived across the room to answer.
“Hello?”
“Hi Will,” Finn answered cheerfully.
“Finn.” Will smiled reflexively and sank onto the couch, rubbing his knee which had not handled the impromptu lounge gymnastics very well, “How was practice?”
“Oh, y'know, good.” Finn answered vaguely.
Will remembered the shaky, angry timbre of Finn's voice when he had detailed Sue's merciless criticism of the rendition of Hot n Cold they'd put so much effort into. He understood the anger Finn was feeling when he was told that Sue had overruled Emma and used Friday's practice to instead practice a routine of her own selection. He'd hoped that in the space of a week, a change might have occurred but it appeared to not be so, “Are you okay?”
“I'm fine,” He replied immediately. “Mercedes is gonna rock with It's Raining Men, we'll be awesome.”
“You don't have to lie to me, Finn,” Will reminded gently.
“I really am fine. With the performance anyway,” Finn explained. “I'm just... It's gonna suck not having you out there watching tonight.”
“You made it through Sectionals last year without me there.”
“I know. Is it wrong that I want you there?” Finn queried.
“Of course not,” Will insisted without having to consider it. “You know I want to be there too.”
After a moment's pause, Finn changed the topic in a clunky manner, “How was your meeting with the Devil?”
Will calmly accepted the conversational change, “It went reasonably.”
“Are his eyes still like fire?” Finn asked, a gentle teasing tone lurking underneath his words.
“I'm starting to reconsider. He enjoys invading my privacy so much I think lasers are more accurate, totally penetrating.”
Finn growled, “I'm the only one who should be penetrating you.”
Will laughed, but also felt the pleasant warmth of arousal settle in his lower belly, “You should tell him that.”
“I would,” Finn insisted. “If I wasn't trapped with a mad woman who makes me play with dolls.”
Will chuckled again, “Two sessions down and we still have our sense of humor, that's got to be a good sign, right?”
“I don't know, crazy people in movies tend to laugh a lot,” Finn reasoned.
*
In the back of the Hummel's car, with Burt and Carole up front and Kurt to one side of him, Finn reflected upon the previous year's Invitationals. April Rhodes had led them in the first song and she'd been amazing, but the sheer embarrassment of her being there had dragged the whole experience down. When Rachel had stepped in to fill her shoes in the second song, they'd managed to end on a high.
The performance they'd left behind was similar, only rather than a blonde alcoholic who was far too old to be a member of the club being the cause of embarrassment, it was the knowledge that his mom and Burt were in the audience, watching them sing and dance to Hot In Herre.
In the second song Mercedes, Tina and Santana really impressed with their shared vocal performance of It's Raining Men, but Finn was glad his role as back-up vocalist meant he could stick to the back and avoid the aura of disapproval hanging over the audience. Figgins in particular had been glowering and backstage after they'd finished there was much speculation amongst the club as to what the consequences of the night would be.
The difference seemed to be that although they'd ended on a high, it hadn't managed to wipe the embarrassment away. It lingered, an unwanted passenger in the vehicle alongside them, making them uncomfortable and unable to speak.
The get-together hadn't been planned in advance enough for a table at a restaurant to be booked, which Finn was glad about, a booth at McDonalds felt a lot more appealing at that moment than the stringent manners that would be expected if they went somewhere that served its food on plates.
Kurt bitched about the nutritional minefield of the fast food world and settled for chicken nuggets and a diet soda. Everyone else ordered a Big Mac meal.
“Anyone want my gherkins?” Carole asked, plucking the slices out before replacing the top bun.
“Sure,” Finn accepted them readily.
“You want mine too?” Burt inquired.
Finn smiled wryly, “Aren't parents supposed to tell their kids to eat their vegetables?”
“A gherkin isn't a vegetable,” Carole insisted. “Gherkins are just zombie cucumbers.”
Finn looked down at the green slices in his hand with a contemplative expression, “Hey Kurt, do you want my-”
“I'm not eating your zombie greens, Finn,” Kurt responded, dipping one of his nuggets in his sauce.
Burt snorted, then tried to cover it by slurping his drink.
“Your friend Mercedes is really talented,” Carole told Kurt, a polite attempt to change the topic.
“Yeah, she's awesome,” Kurt agreed, taking a sip of his soda and wrinkling his nose. “Ugh, this isn't diet.”
“It's not?” Burt asked, holding out a hand, “Here let me taste.”
“So what's the verdict from the panel?” Kurt asked drily once his dad and Carole had both tasted the drink.
“Definitely not diet,” Carole confirmed.
“I'm gonna go make them change it,” Burt insisted, making a move to stand up.
“There's no need to make a fuss,” Carole urged.
“What if Kurt was diabetic?” Burt challenged, “They shouldn't get away with those kinds of mistakes.”
“Dad, seriously, it's fine,” Kurt soothed, taking his drink back. “It'll mean, like ten extra minutes of step aerobics, no big deal.”
“Do you think we can get them to change the zombie cucumber?” Finn requested.
“No. Eat your veggies, Finn,” Carole teased.
“They're your veggies,” Finn reminded.
The resulting laughter pushed aside the remaining awkwardness from the Glee performance. The rest of the meal passed comfortably and the Hudson/Hummel ensemble left the restaurant in high spirits, leaving the uneaten gherkin on the tray.
*
In the early hours of the following morning, Will returned from work to find the door to his apartment blocked by a small mountain of cardboard boxes. He took a moment to tiredly examine the situation and consider what he should do, but before he could formulate a plan the chirpy chime of the elevator alerted him to the presence of a young woman carrying another two boxes with her. She slouched down the hall towards him, her posture necessary to accommodate the boxes, and dropped her load alongside the mound already present.
Standing up and stretching enthusiastically, she finally noticed him, “Oh... Hi.”
Will smiled as politely as his exhaustion allowed, “Hello.”
The young woman blinked and pushed her messy fringe out of her eyes, looking between the mound of boxes and the man stood patiently beside them, she came to a belated conclusion, “You live there.” She gestured to the upper half of Will's door, visible from behind the pile of cardboard.
“Yes.”
“Oh man, I'm sorry.” Before she had even finished apologizing, she had bent down to retrieve the first of the boxes stacked by the door, shifting them to the side. She stood up again and paused, turning back round to hold out a hand, “I'm Moth, I'm moving in next door.”
“Moth?” Will repeated dubiously, taking the proffered hand.
“Mandy,” She corrected. “But my friends call me Moth.”
“I'm Will,” He supplied, before succumbing to curiosity. “How did you get a nickname like Moth?”
“Because I'm easily distracted by anything shiny,” Moth responded, picking the the sleeve of her jacket for a few seconds before realizing that she'd become distracted in her efforts to relocate her boxes and resuming her task. “If I move the ones by my door I'll be able to open it and put them inside, it'll save having to move them all again.”
“Do you want some help?” Will asked.
“You mean it?” Moth asked, sounding incredibly surprised by the offer.
Will looked to the end of the hall, “I don't see anyone else helping out. You could use a hand.” And if your attention span is as bad as you say, I'd like to get to bed some time today, He added in his head.
Moth clambered over the boxes to a small alcove she had left by the apartment door and fished about in her pockets for the key. Will passed the first box across to her once she'd opened the door and she disappeared into the apartment to put it down. When she returned she continued the conversation.
“What are you doing awake so early anyway?” She quizzed, taking a box from the top of the pile in front of her, “I figured everyone would still be in bed. Heck, I'd be in bed if it wasn't moving day.”
Will waited for her to return from her second trip inside to answer, “I just got off shift.” He indicated his uniform, “Night guard.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened with understanding and she looked the uniform up and down, “I guess I should tell you that I tend to miss the obvious, along with my lack of an attention span.”
Will shrugged, “It's early, let's both blame it on tiredness.”
Moth beamed, “Spoken like a true night-shifter.”
“You work?” Will prompted.
“Weekday nights at the 7/11,” Moth responded, a half-smile on her lips at his sympathetic wince, “Yeah, but it pays. So, y'know.” Shrugging, she bent down to take the boxes blocking Will's path to the doorway.
“So are you new in town or just moving?” He asked, taking a couple of boxes from the slowly reducing pile and following her inside.
“I'm from Colorado originally,” She replied. “Moved here with a friend just over a month ago.”
“Colorado's a long way from here.”
“Yeah.” She smiled, clearly seeing the distance as a benefit, “Jerome's great aunt left him an apartment so we figured we'd get the hell out of our dead-end town.”
“Right into another one,” Will responded with a humorless smile, following her out into the hall to retrieve more of her belongings.
“Maybe,” She answered with a shrug. “But it's a different dead-end town and that's something.”
“So why aren't you still living with this Jerome?”
“Jerome and I go way back, best buds, but I got sick of sleeping on his couch. So, here I am.”
“So he's not a boyfriend?” He asked.
“You asking me if I'm single?” Moth queried, standing with one hand on her hip and fluttering her eyelashes suggestively.
“No!” Will exclaimed, a sickening lurch in his stomach at her misconstrued interpretation of events. His mind taunted him with thoughts of what people would say if he was seen dating someone young so soon after his affair with Finn had been revealed, and at the mere thought of Finn his heart added a needle-sharp burst of pain to the mix.
“Oh, jeez,” She answered, dropping her flirtatious pose and sagging into a limp stance. “I'm sorry dude, I was just teasing. I didn't mean- Oh God, you're married aren't you?”
“No, I...” As the sensation died away, it left guilt for the panic he'd caused in its place, “Not married.”
“So I'm just ugly?” She peeked up through mascara laden lashes with a hint of a smile.
“I just got out of a relationship,” He answered with careful obfuscation. “I'm not exactly looking for another at the moment.”
“I'm sorry,” She answered with the awkward sympathy of youth, pushing her bangs out of her eyes again and observing the three-quarter mound of boxes. “We should get coffee.”
“Not looking for a relationship,” Will repeated firmly.
“Oh no, I-” She spluttered and buried her face in her hands, “God, I suck at this.” Despite her self-deprecating words she was laughing, “I just meant that it's really early and I need caffeine.”
Watching Moth giggling at her own inarticulateness, Will felt the hard knot in his chest loosen, “Aren't we moving boxes right now?”
“Oh, yeah.” She grabbed another box and made her way inside, speaking over her shoulder to him as he followed, “But I'm totally new to the neighborhood, I wouldn't even know where to go to get coffee and if I just go out looking I know I'll end up somewhere that'll totally rip me off, so it'd be awesome if you'd come with me and be, like, my guide or something.”
“Let's finish moving you in, then we can get coffee,” He answered.
“Sweet.” Clapping her hands together excitedly, she skipped across to the door to collect another box.
*
After they had finished moving Moth's boxes into her new apartment, they left them sitting in a pile similar to the one they had formed out in the hall and Will took the young woman to a Dunkin' Donuts two blocks away. He deeply wanted to sleep and so knew that caffeine would be a bad idea, but also knew that he would probably pass out midway through his conversation with his new neighbor if he didn't order coffee.
Stopping at a bench a little further down the street, Will took the first sip of his drink and concluded that Moth's insistence on finding a place that suited her constrained budget also unfortunately meant that the drink was mediocre at best.
“Thanks, dude. Seriously,” Moth offered her gratitude again as she tore open the paper bag with her mini-donuts inside.
“It's no problem,” He answered nonchalantly. When he had seen her digging through her many pockets looking for the loose, crumpled bills she kept in there, he'd stepped in and purchased her order for her, “Think of it as a housewarming gift.”
“Donuts as a housewarming gift?” She asked, “That is like, the best thing I have ever heard.” She grinned widely, “Better than Jerome, he got me a cactus.”
Will smiled and considered how long the plant would last, from what he'd observed of Moth so far that morning he concluded that the drought-resistant abilities of the cactus would be put to the test.
“So what are your plans?” Will asked after a silence stretched between them.
“Well, right now I'm eating donuts,” She answered, holding up a sugar-coated piece of batter as proof.
“You aren't planning anything beyond that?”
“I live in the now.”
“Don't you even have an idea about what you want to do with your life?” He challenged, old habits from his former career pushing him to direct her in some way.
“I did the minimum wage loser thing back home,” Moth answered. “I'm not going there again. I'm back in school, community college. It's not bad.”
Will felt a little relieved that she was making an attempt to climb from the bottom. He'd only known her for about an hour, but she was nice enough that he wouldn't wish for her to join the rest of the town in their lifetime sentence to Lima, “What are you studying?”
“Art and Art History,” She answered, taking a sip of her coffee before needlessly adding, “I like art.”
“You want to be an artist?” He asked, fondly remembering the two weeks of his Junior year of High School when he had been convinced that he wanted to be a comic book artist, before he learned exactly how much effort it took to put a single issue together and abandoned the idea.
“I am an artist,” Moth declared firmly. “I draw, therefore I am... y'know, an artist. If you mean, do I wanna get paid to be an artist, then sure, you know anyone willing to pay me?”
“You're thinking about things rationally then,” Will observed approvingly.
“Like I said, did the minimum-wage loser gig,” She repeated, toying with the piercings in her left ear. “The classes are mostly to help me build up my portfolio, plus it'll look good to have a qualification to apply with. I wanna be a tattoo artist.”
Will considered the grunge appearance of the young woman before him and concluded that she would probably be well-suited to the job, it was probable that she had a tattoo already, “That sounds nice.”
Moth snorted with amusement, “'Nice'. I'm guessing that means you don't have any tattoos.”
Will smiled wryly, “You got me. Not a single one.”
“You ever think about it?” She asked, gesturing with her cup of coffee.
“I pierced my ear when I was younger, when it was trendy. After that I thought about getting a tattoo but I wasn't sure I could stand the pain,” He answered.
“It really doesn't hurt that much,” She insisted, confirming his suspicion that she was tattooed. “There's kinda a pressure but that's all, mostly.”
“It doesn't matter, I'm not getting the tattoo anymore. I was going to get 'Terri' with a heart around it on my bicep.”
“Oh dude,” She shook her head, laughing softly. “That is so lame.”
“So it's a cliché, like I said I was only doing it because it was trendy,” He defended, smiling nostalgically.
“So what happened to Terri?” She queried.
“We got divorced,” He answered frankly, the smile froze on his face and then slowly receded.
“Ow, sorry.” The pause was filled with the sound of her slurping coffee, “So what happened?”
“I'd rather not say,” Will replied hesitantly.
“Oh, c'mon dude!” Moth complained, “I'm practically giving you my life story here.”
“It happened recently and it's still a little painful to talk about. You can ask me something else if you like,” He offered to placate her.
“Fine,” She declared boldly. Lifting her legs up onto the bench, she turned to sit cross-legged, facing him, “Why does everyone passing by keep giving you dirty looks?”
Will turned to see a man walking on the other side of the road, just as Moth had said he was observing the two of them with distaste, “I thought you said you were unobservant.”
“And yet I noticed that this town thinks you're the Grinch or something,” She replied steadily. “So, seriously, what's the sitch?”
“Well, with Terri and I-”
“Nuh-uh,” She cut him off sharply. “I wanna know this now.”
Will looked down at his shoes, he could still feel Moth's gaze on him but it helped to not have to look her directly in the eye, “I used to be a teacher...”
“And what, you gave the whole town detention or something?” She prompted with obvious confusion.
“I had an affair with one of my students,” He stated, voice calm despite the maelstrom in his chest.
“Oh,” Moth answered vacantly. “Oh!” She repeated with shock, “How... how old was-”
“Sixteen,” He presented the fact bluntly. “Seventeen this January.”
“Oh,” She answered again, “So you're the guy everyone's been talking about?”
Will's shoulders stiffened as he fought the urge to huddle in on himself, “Yes.”
“I've heard some really bad things-” Moth started.
“I don't care,” Will cut her off, still addressing his shoes. “I don't care what anyone thinks.”
“Now that's a lie,” She stated simply, shifting closer and placing a friendly hand to his tense shoulder. “I'm a nonconformist and I know lots of other nonconformists, we all say we don't care what anyone thinks but go out of our way to get their attention. The only people who don't care what people think of them are sociopaths. You don't seem like a sociopath to me, Will.”
“I don't care what they think,” Will corrected. “I only care about the opinions of the people who are close to me.”
“Well I live next door now, that's pretty close,” Moth declared. “And I think you're an okay guy.”
Will looked up hesitantly to see her smiling earnestly, he responded with a shaky smile of his own.
Before he went to bed that morning, Will contemplated the stranger who had burst into his life. She was young, and young in a very upfront way that reminded him of how much older he was. Finn was different, his lover gave off a sense of maturity despite his age that made him a comfortable person to be around and it occurred to Will that perhaps that was part of why their relationship had come about in the first place.
In spite of her eccentricities and the fact that she wasn't at all the sort of person Will would have sought a friendship with under normal circumstances, he was glad that the strange young woman had moved in next door. A crushing sense of isolation had begun to settle over Will as his life's new routine became familiar and the possibility of a friendship with Moth eased that worry in Will's mind as he went to sleep.
*
Glee was a nervous experience on Monday. Artie and Tina got word to the others that they'd seen Coach Sylvester and Ms. Pillsbury in Principal Figgins office that morning and when Finn asked the guidance counselor what had happened during their scheduled session, she told him that he'd find out with the others that afternoon. Santana and Brittany were predicting the worst due to their coach's aggressive behavior during their lunchtime Cheerios practice.
“You don't think Figgins would cancel Glee club, do you?” Tina fretted.
“Of course not,” Rachel asserted. “And if he tries, my two gay dads will have something to say about it.”
“You can't keep using your dads as a 'get out of jail free' card,” Quinn refuted.
“I think you'll find with enough creativity it can be applied to any situation,” Rachel returned piously.
“Are we going to jail?” Brittany asked timidly.
The club's speculation was cut short by the arrival of Coach Sylvester, with Ms. Pillsbury following behind. The coach marched to the center of the room and settled into an assertive stance, her legs apart, her hands firmly on her hips and a scowl on her face. A small tremor passed down Finn's spine.
“As you likely already know, the Principal has taken offense at our performance last Friday. There are a lot of things I'd like to say about that but frankly I'd be fired if I said them in front of you and if it aired on Sue's Corner they would censor the majority.”
“Um, Sue.” Emma interrupted, “Should I maybe-”
“Go ahead,” Sue commanded, stepping back and leaning against the piano.
“Principal Figgins has informed us that he and a selection of parents and members of the local church are concerned by the lyrical content of the songs we chose for Invitationals,” Ms. Pillsbury explained. “He has said that to counter the immoral message present in the song, we are to prepare a performance for the rest of the school on Thursday.”
“Did he specify a song?” Rachel asked.
“You're going to be performing We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off by Jermaine Stewart,” She answered.
An audible groan sounded from several members of the club, Finn was tempted to join them. Figgins had selected a song that was quite literally the opposite of Hot In Herre but it was also a song that would be very little fun to perform, particularly with the added embarrassment factor of it being in front of the rest of the student body.
“Okay, okay.” Sue stepped forward again, “We're gonna be wasting this week preparing for the assembly but here's the good news, you guys rocked on Friday. I mean it, I was impressed.” She smiled for the first time since she'd entered the room and let everyone take a moment to exchange fistbumps or smiles, “But we need to be better than that for Sectionals, so I want everyone to be ready to put it into high gear on Friday.”
*
On the Sunday of his next appointment with Dr. Harper, Finn dug the notepad she had given him out of his drawer and filled in the backlog as believably as he could. He was reluctant to admit that she had been right in telling him that there were positive things in his life: the dynamic between his family was returning to where it had been before, the bullying he put up with daily was becoming more bearable, even with the added attention the assembly performance attracted, the assembly itself had not been much fun but Coach Sylvester was humbled by the experience enough that her Glee practices had become tolerable again.
Dr. Harper was glad to see the progress and spent the entire session focusing on the recovery he was making with his life and the improvement it was making to his attitude. She didn't mention Will once, so Finn left the institute feeling much lighter than he had done during previous visits.
That changed as soon as he stepped out of the gates. Across the road half the football team were watching and there was no doubt that they had seen him. Geller shouted something across to him as he walked away from them as quickly as he could, a heavy weight settled over him as he concluded that the bullying he would endure the next day would come from a fresh, painful angle.
*
On Monday morning Finn was at Kurt's locker, discussing their parents' plan for the two families to spend Thanksgiving together, when he saw Kurt glancing warily over his shoulder. Even before the first person spoke Finn knew what was behind him.
“Hey Hudson, you psycho. How long they been sending you to the Lab?” Karfosky's voice. Finn tensed.
“Don't answer them,” Kurt implored in a whisper, before returning to his normal speaking volume to continue talking about the pumpkin pie recipe he was particularly proud of.
“Is the shock therapy helping?” Azimio asked, “I figure if we can't beat the homo out of you, the madhouse doctor's might do a better job.” General guffawing from the pack of goons followed the comment and Finn grit his teeth and nodded politely at Kurt's recital, which was steadily growing in volume.
“Is that why you have to see Ms. Pillsbury so often?” Murphy suggested, “She gives you your dose of anti-fag.”
“Can't be working if he's hanging out with Hummel,” Anderson answered.
Kurt's words faltered and a flash of pain shimmered across his eyes. Finn's fist slammed into the locker beside him and he practically growled, “Shut up!”
“Oh, have we struck a nerve?” Azimio's voice rang with delight.
Finn turned and shrugged off the hand when Kurt tried to pull him back. “I told you to shut up,” He repeated dangerously.
Karofsky sneered and folded his arms over his chest. “I call 'em like I see 'em,” He stated simply. “You're a nutjob and he's a faggot. You both need locking up.”
Karofsky's dodging skills hadn't improved. He fell back into Azimio and the two of them collapsed to the floor, Karofsky's nose bleeding rapidly. Finn was dimly aware of Kurt calling for him to stop but as he rounded on the other two jocks, he entered into a violent frenzy, delivering a flurry of blows to the people that had enraged him and brushing off the pain from their counterattacks with little more than further cries of anger.
In Figgins' office he sat staring at the blood on his knuckles, half-listening to the sound of Ms. Pillsbury insisting that he'd been provoked and defending him as best she could.
*
“Again?” Carole asked with a sigh, “Oh, Finn. I thought we were past this.”
“I guess not,” Finn replied sullenly, slumped low on the couch. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“I'm not disappointed,” She insisted, settling onto the couch beside him and trying to pull him into a hug despite his bitter mood.
Shrugging out of the embrace, Finn stood up and retreated, “I don't want to talk right now.”
He was on the foot of the stairs when the doorbell rang, so he turned back to answer it. Kurt stood on the doorstep, not quite meeting his eye.
“Hey Finn,” He spoke gently.
“Hi,” He responded tightly.
“I went round your teachers and asked for some work for you,” Kurt explained, handing over a stack of books.
“Well, gee thanks,” Finn replied sarcastically, accepting the books.
“We have tests coming soon, you don't want to fall behind,” Kurt snapped in reply.
“It's not like I asked to get suspended,” Finn snapped back, his frustration was close to the surface and boiled over easily onto the other boy.
“Punching someone in the face is asking to get suspended.”
“Calling someone a faggot is asking to get punched in the face,” Finn retorted.
“Well then I owe you a punch,” Kurt pointed out, puffing up boldly. “You gonna stand there and let me?”
Finn's stomach dropped so low it was probably enjoying a pleasant vacation in the southern hemisphere while he stared slack-jawed at Kurt, “I... I know I- but that was different.”
“Oh, it's 'different',” Kurt remarked snidely. “You call them meat-heads and think you're so much better than them. You forget you used to be one of them. You forget you're the same.”
“I'm not the same!” Finn argued.
“You beat the crap out of them because they annoyed you, how is that not the same?” Kurt challenged.
“They called you a faggot. I was defending you.”
“Lots of people call me a faggot. You called me a faggot! You can't go around punching everyone who ever says something bad about me, or about you,” Kurt insisted, anger fading into somber defeat. Reaching into his backpack, he pulled out another book and placed it on top of the pile he'd already given to Finn, “I got this copy of Sun Tzu out of the library for you. Read it, then maybe you'll understand why you messed up today.”
Finn grit his teeth at Kurt's condescending tone and slammed the door on his retreating back. Stomping up the stairs, he threw the pile of books down on his desk and turned his X-Box on, if actual violence had built up all his aggression then he would have to take it out through simulated violence.
*
Finn passed the first two days of his suspension exerting his anger through video games and practicing on the drums. On the morning of the third day, the man who lived next door came round to complain about the noise and so Finn spent the morning of that day laid out on his bed doing nothing.
By the time afternoon rolled around, he decided to inspect the pile of books Kurt had delivered. Pushing Sun Tzu to one side resentfully, he found the assignment Ms. Lenin had provided for him: to finish translating the entirety of Act 1 of Romeo and Juliet into Spanish. Finn groaned at the concept, it was irritating to translate the Shakespearean into modern English and then into Spanish, but wary of the elderly teacher's wrath should be not comply, he turned his laptop on and set to work.
By Friday, Finn had done the best he could with the work he'd been set. He knew that much of it would fall well below the expectations of his teachers but he couldn't quite bring himself to care. Returning the books to a tidy stack on his desk, he uncovered the copy of Sun Tzu that he had rejected previously and out of sheer boredom opened to a random page.
That afternoon in his phone call to Will, he expressed his confusion with the book, “Was Noah Chinese?”
There was a brief pause as Will struggled to make sense on the question, “I can't say specifically since it can't be proven when or where the events of the Bible took place, but Noah was a forefather of the Israelites so I wouldn't think so. Why do you ask?”
Finn explained the chain of logic that had led to his question, “Kurt gave me a book, Sun Tzu and the Art of War. Some of it's about fighting but a lot of it has to do with animals, since it's so old and stuff, I thought maybe it took place on Noah's Ark and that's why all the animals are in it.”
“Finn, the animal parts are allegory,” Will explained patiently.
“Is that a baby alligator?” Finn questioned uncertainly.
“No, it's...” Will stopped to take a breath, “How can I explain this? The animals aren't real, like when Sun Tzu compares the flea and the ox, he isn't really suggesting you take a flea to battle with you. They're a comparison, think about how they compare to a real life scenario. With the flea and the ox, it just means that sometimes a small force can take down a large opponent.”
Finn considered his lover's words for a few moments, “I guess that makes sense.”
Will had stayed silent on the topic of Finn's suspension all week but with the opportunity to express his opinion he couldn't remain silent, “I think Kurt was just trying to teach you that you should choose your battles carefully. A clever general only fights the battles he knows he can win.”
“But I did win,” Finn pointed out.
“Why did you start the fight?” Will queried.
“They called Kurt a faggot,” Finn answered, anger still present in his voice when he considered it.
“Have they stopped calling Kurt a faggot?” Will challenged.
Finn stopped to consider it and realized that his bravado had ultimately yielded no results other than his own suspension, “I'm an idiot.”
“I would say you're a noble idiot,” Will soothed.
“Do you think Kurt hates me?” Finn worried.
“That boy can hold a grudge,” Will admitted. “But I don't think he'll stay mad at you for long. You did have the best intentions.”
“Why is it you can make me feel better without even trying?”
“I'm secretly magic,” Will responded, entirely deadpan. Finn laughed and his mood was lifted even further by the sound of his lover's laughter at the other end.
*
The tension at the table during Thanksgiving was so thick Finn was tempted to suggest they slice it right after Burt was done carving the turkey. He recalled the meal they'd shared at McDonalds not long before and how relaxed they had been.
The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities. It is best to win without fighting.
The Sun Tzu quote entered Finn's mind as he sat, with the tension swimming lazily around the room. So when his mom suggested that they each took the time to state something they were thankful for, he volunteered to go first.
“I'm glad we can all be here together,” He started, then dropped his gaze to his plate. “I'm thankful that you put up with how stupid I can be sometimes and that I didn't ruin this for us all. I'm thankful that you're standing by me even when I make mistakes and that I know I can always lean on you.” He glanced up and saw that his Mom's eyes were getting watery, and so to avoid a scene ended on a less sappy note, “Also, I'm thankful we have real cranberry sauce this year instead of from a can, and for bunny rabbits and payphones and pogo sticks.”
A silence stretched as Finn sank back into his seat, then Kurt stood up dramatically and calmly announced, “Ditto.”
The silence broke as Carole and Burt succumbed to laughter and playful, mocking applause.
Author: dark_dreymer
Part: 6/10 (So far)
Word Count: 6234
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, Language
Will's rational side told him, as he struggled to turn the the key in the stiff, stubborn lock, that it was silly to get excited by the sound of the telephone ringing. That it could very easily be a telemarketer or a wrong number, and simply because the phone happened to be ringing at the time Finn had promised to call did not mean for certain that it was his young lover at the other end of the line. Will's less rational side firmly told his rational side precisely where it could stick those negative justifications as he pushed open the front door and practically dived across the room to answer.
“Hello?”
“Hi Will,” Finn answered cheerfully.
“Finn.” Will smiled reflexively and sank onto the couch, rubbing his knee which had not handled the impromptu lounge gymnastics very well, “How was practice?”
“Oh, y'know, good.” Finn answered vaguely.
Will remembered the shaky, angry timbre of Finn's voice when he had detailed Sue's merciless criticism of the rendition of Hot n Cold they'd put so much effort into. He understood the anger Finn was feeling when he was told that Sue had overruled Emma and used Friday's practice to instead practice a routine of her own selection. He'd hoped that in the space of a week, a change might have occurred but it appeared to not be so, “Are you okay?”
“I'm fine,” He replied immediately. “Mercedes is gonna rock with It's Raining Men, we'll be awesome.”
“You don't have to lie to me, Finn,” Will reminded gently.
“I really am fine. With the performance anyway,” Finn explained. “I'm just... It's gonna suck not having you out there watching tonight.”
“You made it through Sectionals last year without me there.”
“I know. Is it wrong that I want you there?” Finn queried.
“Of course not,” Will insisted without having to consider it. “You know I want to be there too.”
After a moment's pause, Finn changed the topic in a clunky manner, “How was your meeting with the Devil?”
Will calmly accepted the conversational change, “It went reasonably.”
“Are his eyes still like fire?” Finn asked, a gentle teasing tone lurking underneath his words.
“I'm starting to reconsider. He enjoys invading my privacy so much I think lasers are more accurate, totally penetrating.”
Finn growled, “I'm the only one who should be penetrating you.”
Will laughed, but also felt the pleasant warmth of arousal settle in his lower belly, “You should tell him that.”
“I would,” Finn insisted. “If I wasn't trapped with a mad woman who makes me play with dolls.”
Will chuckled again, “Two sessions down and we still have our sense of humor, that's got to be a good sign, right?”
“I don't know, crazy people in movies tend to laugh a lot,” Finn reasoned.
*
In the back of the Hummel's car, with Burt and Carole up front and Kurt to one side of him, Finn reflected upon the previous year's Invitationals. April Rhodes had led them in the first song and she'd been amazing, but the sheer embarrassment of her being there had dragged the whole experience down. When Rachel had stepped in to fill her shoes in the second song, they'd managed to end on a high.
The performance they'd left behind was similar, only rather than a blonde alcoholic who was far too old to be a member of the club being the cause of embarrassment, it was the knowledge that his mom and Burt were in the audience, watching them sing and dance to Hot In Herre.
In the second song Mercedes, Tina and Santana really impressed with their shared vocal performance of It's Raining Men, but Finn was glad his role as back-up vocalist meant he could stick to the back and avoid the aura of disapproval hanging over the audience. Figgins in particular had been glowering and backstage after they'd finished there was much speculation amongst the club as to what the consequences of the night would be.
The difference seemed to be that although they'd ended on a high, it hadn't managed to wipe the embarrassment away. It lingered, an unwanted passenger in the vehicle alongside them, making them uncomfortable and unable to speak.
The get-together hadn't been planned in advance enough for a table at a restaurant to be booked, which Finn was glad about, a booth at McDonalds felt a lot more appealing at that moment than the stringent manners that would be expected if they went somewhere that served its food on plates.
Kurt bitched about the nutritional minefield of the fast food world and settled for chicken nuggets and a diet soda. Everyone else ordered a Big Mac meal.
“Anyone want my gherkins?” Carole asked, plucking the slices out before replacing the top bun.
“Sure,” Finn accepted them readily.
“You want mine too?” Burt inquired.
Finn smiled wryly, “Aren't parents supposed to tell their kids to eat their vegetables?”
“A gherkin isn't a vegetable,” Carole insisted. “Gherkins are just zombie cucumbers.”
Finn looked down at the green slices in his hand with a contemplative expression, “Hey Kurt, do you want my-”
“I'm not eating your zombie greens, Finn,” Kurt responded, dipping one of his nuggets in his sauce.
Burt snorted, then tried to cover it by slurping his drink.
“Your friend Mercedes is really talented,” Carole told Kurt, a polite attempt to change the topic.
“Yeah, she's awesome,” Kurt agreed, taking a sip of his soda and wrinkling his nose. “Ugh, this isn't diet.”
“It's not?” Burt asked, holding out a hand, “Here let me taste.”
“So what's the verdict from the panel?” Kurt asked drily once his dad and Carole had both tasted the drink.
“Definitely not diet,” Carole confirmed.
“I'm gonna go make them change it,” Burt insisted, making a move to stand up.
“There's no need to make a fuss,” Carole urged.
“What if Kurt was diabetic?” Burt challenged, “They shouldn't get away with those kinds of mistakes.”
“Dad, seriously, it's fine,” Kurt soothed, taking his drink back. “It'll mean, like ten extra minutes of step aerobics, no big deal.”
“Do you think we can get them to change the zombie cucumber?” Finn requested.
“No. Eat your veggies, Finn,” Carole teased.
“They're your veggies,” Finn reminded.
The resulting laughter pushed aside the remaining awkwardness from the Glee performance. The rest of the meal passed comfortably and the Hudson/Hummel ensemble left the restaurant in high spirits, leaving the uneaten gherkin on the tray.
*
In the early hours of the following morning, Will returned from work to find the door to his apartment blocked by a small mountain of cardboard boxes. He took a moment to tiredly examine the situation and consider what he should do, but before he could formulate a plan the chirpy chime of the elevator alerted him to the presence of a young woman carrying another two boxes with her. She slouched down the hall towards him, her posture necessary to accommodate the boxes, and dropped her load alongside the mound already present.
Standing up and stretching enthusiastically, she finally noticed him, “Oh... Hi.”
Will smiled as politely as his exhaustion allowed, “Hello.”
The young woman blinked and pushed her messy fringe out of her eyes, looking between the mound of boxes and the man stood patiently beside them, she came to a belated conclusion, “You live there.” She gestured to the upper half of Will's door, visible from behind the pile of cardboard.
“Yes.”
“Oh man, I'm sorry.” Before she had even finished apologizing, she had bent down to retrieve the first of the boxes stacked by the door, shifting them to the side. She stood up again and paused, turning back round to hold out a hand, “I'm Moth, I'm moving in next door.”
“Moth?” Will repeated dubiously, taking the proffered hand.
“Mandy,” She corrected. “But my friends call me Moth.”
“I'm Will,” He supplied, before succumbing to curiosity. “How did you get a nickname like Moth?”
“Because I'm easily distracted by anything shiny,” Moth responded, picking the the sleeve of her jacket for a few seconds before realizing that she'd become distracted in her efforts to relocate her boxes and resuming her task. “If I move the ones by my door I'll be able to open it and put them inside, it'll save having to move them all again.”
“Do you want some help?” Will asked.
“You mean it?” Moth asked, sounding incredibly surprised by the offer.
Will looked to the end of the hall, “I don't see anyone else helping out. You could use a hand.” And if your attention span is as bad as you say, I'd like to get to bed some time today, He added in his head.
Moth clambered over the boxes to a small alcove she had left by the apartment door and fished about in her pockets for the key. Will passed the first box across to her once she'd opened the door and she disappeared into the apartment to put it down. When she returned she continued the conversation.
“What are you doing awake so early anyway?” She quizzed, taking a box from the top of the pile in front of her, “I figured everyone would still be in bed. Heck, I'd be in bed if it wasn't moving day.”
Will waited for her to return from her second trip inside to answer, “I just got off shift.” He indicated his uniform, “Night guard.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened with understanding and she looked the uniform up and down, “I guess I should tell you that I tend to miss the obvious, along with my lack of an attention span.”
Will shrugged, “It's early, let's both blame it on tiredness.”
Moth beamed, “Spoken like a true night-shifter.”
“You work?” Will prompted.
“Weekday nights at the 7/11,” Moth responded, a half-smile on her lips at his sympathetic wince, “Yeah, but it pays. So, y'know.” Shrugging, she bent down to take the boxes blocking Will's path to the doorway.
“So are you new in town or just moving?” He asked, taking a couple of boxes from the slowly reducing pile and following her inside.
“I'm from Colorado originally,” She replied. “Moved here with a friend just over a month ago.”
“Colorado's a long way from here.”
“Yeah.” She smiled, clearly seeing the distance as a benefit, “Jerome's great aunt left him an apartment so we figured we'd get the hell out of our dead-end town.”
“Right into another one,” Will responded with a humorless smile, following her out into the hall to retrieve more of her belongings.
“Maybe,” She answered with a shrug. “But it's a different dead-end town and that's something.”
“So why aren't you still living with this Jerome?”
“Jerome and I go way back, best buds, but I got sick of sleeping on his couch. So, here I am.”
“So he's not a boyfriend?” He asked.
“You asking me if I'm single?” Moth queried, standing with one hand on her hip and fluttering her eyelashes suggestively.
“No!” Will exclaimed, a sickening lurch in his stomach at her misconstrued interpretation of events. His mind taunted him with thoughts of what people would say if he was seen dating someone young so soon after his affair with Finn had been revealed, and at the mere thought of Finn his heart added a needle-sharp burst of pain to the mix.
“Oh, jeez,” She answered, dropping her flirtatious pose and sagging into a limp stance. “I'm sorry dude, I was just teasing. I didn't mean- Oh God, you're married aren't you?”
“No, I...” As the sensation died away, it left guilt for the panic he'd caused in its place, “Not married.”
“So I'm just ugly?” She peeked up through mascara laden lashes with a hint of a smile.
“I just got out of a relationship,” He answered with careful obfuscation. “I'm not exactly looking for another at the moment.”
“I'm sorry,” She answered with the awkward sympathy of youth, pushing her bangs out of her eyes again and observing the three-quarter mound of boxes. “We should get coffee.”
“Not looking for a relationship,” Will repeated firmly.
“Oh no, I-” She spluttered and buried her face in her hands, “God, I suck at this.” Despite her self-deprecating words she was laughing, “I just meant that it's really early and I need caffeine.”
Watching Moth giggling at her own inarticulateness, Will felt the hard knot in his chest loosen, “Aren't we moving boxes right now?”
“Oh, yeah.” She grabbed another box and made her way inside, speaking over her shoulder to him as he followed, “But I'm totally new to the neighborhood, I wouldn't even know where to go to get coffee and if I just go out looking I know I'll end up somewhere that'll totally rip me off, so it'd be awesome if you'd come with me and be, like, my guide or something.”
“Let's finish moving you in, then we can get coffee,” He answered.
“Sweet.” Clapping her hands together excitedly, she skipped across to the door to collect another box.
*
After they had finished moving Moth's boxes into her new apartment, they left them sitting in a pile similar to the one they had formed out in the hall and Will took the young woman to a Dunkin' Donuts two blocks away. He deeply wanted to sleep and so knew that caffeine would be a bad idea, but also knew that he would probably pass out midway through his conversation with his new neighbor if he didn't order coffee.
Stopping at a bench a little further down the street, Will took the first sip of his drink and concluded that Moth's insistence on finding a place that suited her constrained budget also unfortunately meant that the drink was mediocre at best.
“Thanks, dude. Seriously,” Moth offered her gratitude again as she tore open the paper bag with her mini-donuts inside.
“It's no problem,” He answered nonchalantly. When he had seen her digging through her many pockets looking for the loose, crumpled bills she kept in there, he'd stepped in and purchased her order for her, “Think of it as a housewarming gift.”
“Donuts as a housewarming gift?” She asked, “That is like, the best thing I have ever heard.” She grinned widely, “Better than Jerome, he got me a cactus.”
Will smiled and considered how long the plant would last, from what he'd observed of Moth so far that morning he concluded that the drought-resistant abilities of the cactus would be put to the test.
“So what are your plans?” Will asked after a silence stretched between them.
“Well, right now I'm eating donuts,” She answered, holding up a sugar-coated piece of batter as proof.
“You aren't planning anything beyond that?”
“I live in the now.”
“Don't you even have an idea about what you want to do with your life?” He challenged, old habits from his former career pushing him to direct her in some way.
“I did the minimum wage loser thing back home,” Moth answered. “I'm not going there again. I'm back in school, community college. It's not bad.”
Will felt a little relieved that she was making an attempt to climb from the bottom. He'd only known her for about an hour, but she was nice enough that he wouldn't wish for her to join the rest of the town in their lifetime sentence to Lima, “What are you studying?”
“Art and Art History,” She answered, taking a sip of her coffee before needlessly adding, “I like art.”
“You want to be an artist?” He asked, fondly remembering the two weeks of his Junior year of High School when he had been convinced that he wanted to be a comic book artist, before he learned exactly how much effort it took to put a single issue together and abandoned the idea.
“I am an artist,” Moth declared firmly. “I draw, therefore I am... y'know, an artist. If you mean, do I wanna get paid to be an artist, then sure, you know anyone willing to pay me?”
“You're thinking about things rationally then,” Will observed approvingly.
“Like I said, did the minimum-wage loser gig,” She repeated, toying with the piercings in her left ear. “The classes are mostly to help me build up my portfolio, plus it'll look good to have a qualification to apply with. I wanna be a tattoo artist.”
Will considered the grunge appearance of the young woman before him and concluded that she would probably be well-suited to the job, it was probable that she had a tattoo already, “That sounds nice.”
Moth snorted with amusement, “'Nice'. I'm guessing that means you don't have any tattoos.”
Will smiled wryly, “You got me. Not a single one.”
“You ever think about it?” She asked, gesturing with her cup of coffee.
“I pierced my ear when I was younger, when it was trendy. After that I thought about getting a tattoo but I wasn't sure I could stand the pain,” He answered.
“It really doesn't hurt that much,” She insisted, confirming his suspicion that she was tattooed. “There's kinda a pressure but that's all, mostly.”
“It doesn't matter, I'm not getting the tattoo anymore. I was going to get 'Terri' with a heart around it on my bicep.”
“Oh dude,” She shook her head, laughing softly. “That is so lame.”
“So it's a cliché, like I said I was only doing it because it was trendy,” He defended, smiling nostalgically.
“So what happened to Terri?” She queried.
“We got divorced,” He answered frankly, the smile froze on his face and then slowly receded.
“Ow, sorry.” The pause was filled with the sound of her slurping coffee, “So what happened?”
“I'd rather not say,” Will replied hesitantly.
“Oh, c'mon dude!” Moth complained, “I'm practically giving you my life story here.”
“It happened recently and it's still a little painful to talk about. You can ask me something else if you like,” He offered to placate her.
“Fine,” She declared boldly. Lifting her legs up onto the bench, she turned to sit cross-legged, facing him, “Why does everyone passing by keep giving you dirty looks?”
Will turned to see a man walking on the other side of the road, just as Moth had said he was observing the two of them with distaste, “I thought you said you were unobservant.”
“And yet I noticed that this town thinks you're the Grinch or something,” She replied steadily. “So, seriously, what's the sitch?”
“Well, with Terri and I-”
“Nuh-uh,” She cut him off sharply. “I wanna know this now.”
Will looked down at his shoes, he could still feel Moth's gaze on him but it helped to not have to look her directly in the eye, “I used to be a teacher...”
“And what, you gave the whole town detention or something?” She prompted with obvious confusion.
“I had an affair with one of my students,” He stated, voice calm despite the maelstrom in his chest.
“Oh,” Moth answered vacantly. “Oh!” She repeated with shock, “How... how old was-”
“Sixteen,” He presented the fact bluntly. “Seventeen this January.”
“Oh,” She answered again, “So you're the guy everyone's been talking about?”
Will's shoulders stiffened as he fought the urge to huddle in on himself, “Yes.”
“I've heard some really bad things-” Moth started.
“I don't care,” Will cut her off, still addressing his shoes. “I don't care what anyone thinks.”
“Now that's a lie,” She stated simply, shifting closer and placing a friendly hand to his tense shoulder. “I'm a nonconformist and I know lots of other nonconformists, we all say we don't care what anyone thinks but go out of our way to get their attention. The only people who don't care what people think of them are sociopaths. You don't seem like a sociopath to me, Will.”
“I don't care what they think,” Will corrected. “I only care about the opinions of the people who are close to me.”
“Well I live next door now, that's pretty close,” Moth declared. “And I think you're an okay guy.”
Will looked up hesitantly to see her smiling earnestly, he responded with a shaky smile of his own.
Before he went to bed that morning, Will contemplated the stranger who had burst into his life. She was young, and young in a very upfront way that reminded him of how much older he was. Finn was different, his lover gave off a sense of maturity despite his age that made him a comfortable person to be around and it occurred to Will that perhaps that was part of why their relationship had come about in the first place.
In spite of her eccentricities and the fact that she wasn't at all the sort of person Will would have sought a friendship with under normal circumstances, he was glad that the strange young woman had moved in next door. A crushing sense of isolation had begun to settle over Will as his life's new routine became familiar and the possibility of a friendship with Moth eased that worry in Will's mind as he went to sleep.
*
Glee was a nervous experience on Monday. Artie and Tina got word to the others that they'd seen Coach Sylvester and Ms. Pillsbury in Principal Figgins office that morning and when Finn asked the guidance counselor what had happened during their scheduled session, she told him that he'd find out with the others that afternoon. Santana and Brittany were predicting the worst due to their coach's aggressive behavior during their lunchtime Cheerios practice.
“You don't think Figgins would cancel Glee club, do you?” Tina fretted.
“Of course not,” Rachel asserted. “And if he tries, my two gay dads will have something to say about it.”
“You can't keep using your dads as a 'get out of jail free' card,” Quinn refuted.
“I think you'll find with enough creativity it can be applied to any situation,” Rachel returned piously.
“Are we going to jail?” Brittany asked timidly.
The club's speculation was cut short by the arrival of Coach Sylvester, with Ms. Pillsbury following behind. The coach marched to the center of the room and settled into an assertive stance, her legs apart, her hands firmly on her hips and a scowl on her face. A small tremor passed down Finn's spine.
“As you likely already know, the Principal has taken offense at our performance last Friday. There are a lot of things I'd like to say about that but frankly I'd be fired if I said them in front of you and if it aired on Sue's Corner they would censor the majority.”
“Um, Sue.” Emma interrupted, “Should I maybe-”
“Go ahead,” Sue commanded, stepping back and leaning against the piano.
“Principal Figgins has informed us that he and a selection of parents and members of the local church are concerned by the lyrical content of the songs we chose for Invitationals,” Ms. Pillsbury explained. “He has said that to counter the immoral message present in the song, we are to prepare a performance for the rest of the school on Thursday.”
“Did he specify a song?” Rachel asked.
“You're going to be performing We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off by Jermaine Stewart,” She answered.
An audible groan sounded from several members of the club, Finn was tempted to join them. Figgins had selected a song that was quite literally the opposite of Hot In Herre but it was also a song that would be very little fun to perform, particularly with the added embarrassment factor of it being in front of the rest of the student body.
“Okay, okay.” Sue stepped forward again, “We're gonna be wasting this week preparing for the assembly but here's the good news, you guys rocked on Friday. I mean it, I was impressed.” She smiled for the first time since she'd entered the room and let everyone take a moment to exchange fistbumps or smiles, “But we need to be better than that for Sectionals, so I want everyone to be ready to put it into high gear on Friday.”
*
On the Sunday of his next appointment with Dr. Harper, Finn dug the notepad she had given him out of his drawer and filled in the backlog as believably as he could. He was reluctant to admit that she had been right in telling him that there were positive things in his life: the dynamic between his family was returning to where it had been before, the bullying he put up with daily was becoming more bearable, even with the added attention the assembly performance attracted, the assembly itself had not been much fun but Coach Sylvester was humbled by the experience enough that her Glee practices had become tolerable again.
Dr. Harper was glad to see the progress and spent the entire session focusing on the recovery he was making with his life and the improvement it was making to his attitude. She didn't mention Will once, so Finn left the institute feeling much lighter than he had done during previous visits.
That changed as soon as he stepped out of the gates. Across the road half the football team were watching and there was no doubt that they had seen him. Geller shouted something across to him as he walked away from them as quickly as he could, a heavy weight settled over him as he concluded that the bullying he would endure the next day would come from a fresh, painful angle.
*
On Monday morning Finn was at Kurt's locker, discussing their parents' plan for the two families to spend Thanksgiving together, when he saw Kurt glancing warily over his shoulder. Even before the first person spoke Finn knew what was behind him.
“Hey Hudson, you psycho. How long they been sending you to the Lab?” Karfosky's voice. Finn tensed.
“Don't answer them,” Kurt implored in a whisper, before returning to his normal speaking volume to continue talking about the pumpkin pie recipe he was particularly proud of.
“Is the shock therapy helping?” Azimio asked, “I figure if we can't beat the homo out of you, the madhouse doctor's might do a better job.” General guffawing from the pack of goons followed the comment and Finn grit his teeth and nodded politely at Kurt's recital, which was steadily growing in volume.
“Is that why you have to see Ms. Pillsbury so often?” Murphy suggested, “She gives you your dose of anti-fag.”
“Can't be working if he's hanging out with Hummel,” Anderson answered.
Kurt's words faltered and a flash of pain shimmered across his eyes. Finn's fist slammed into the locker beside him and he practically growled, “Shut up!”
“Oh, have we struck a nerve?” Azimio's voice rang with delight.
Finn turned and shrugged off the hand when Kurt tried to pull him back. “I told you to shut up,” He repeated dangerously.
Karofsky sneered and folded his arms over his chest. “I call 'em like I see 'em,” He stated simply. “You're a nutjob and he's a faggot. You both need locking up.”
Karofsky's dodging skills hadn't improved. He fell back into Azimio and the two of them collapsed to the floor, Karofsky's nose bleeding rapidly. Finn was dimly aware of Kurt calling for him to stop but as he rounded on the other two jocks, he entered into a violent frenzy, delivering a flurry of blows to the people that had enraged him and brushing off the pain from their counterattacks with little more than further cries of anger.
In Figgins' office he sat staring at the blood on his knuckles, half-listening to the sound of Ms. Pillsbury insisting that he'd been provoked and defending him as best she could.
*
“Again?” Carole asked with a sigh, “Oh, Finn. I thought we were past this.”
“I guess not,” Finn replied sullenly, slumped low on the couch. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“I'm not disappointed,” She insisted, settling onto the couch beside him and trying to pull him into a hug despite his bitter mood.
Shrugging out of the embrace, Finn stood up and retreated, “I don't want to talk right now.”
He was on the foot of the stairs when the doorbell rang, so he turned back to answer it. Kurt stood on the doorstep, not quite meeting his eye.
“Hey Finn,” He spoke gently.
“Hi,” He responded tightly.
“I went round your teachers and asked for some work for you,” Kurt explained, handing over a stack of books.
“Well, gee thanks,” Finn replied sarcastically, accepting the books.
“We have tests coming soon, you don't want to fall behind,” Kurt snapped in reply.
“It's not like I asked to get suspended,” Finn snapped back, his frustration was close to the surface and boiled over easily onto the other boy.
“Punching someone in the face is asking to get suspended.”
“Calling someone a faggot is asking to get punched in the face,” Finn retorted.
“Well then I owe you a punch,” Kurt pointed out, puffing up boldly. “You gonna stand there and let me?”
Finn's stomach dropped so low it was probably enjoying a pleasant vacation in the southern hemisphere while he stared slack-jawed at Kurt, “I... I know I- but that was different.”
“Oh, it's 'different',” Kurt remarked snidely. “You call them meat-heads and think you're so much better than them. You forget you used to be one of them. You forget you're the same.”
“I'm not the same!” Finn argued.
“You beat the crap out of them because they annoyed you, how is that not the same?” Kurt challenged.
“They called you a faggot. I was defending you.”
“Lots of people call me a faggot. You called me a faggot! You can't go around punching everyone who ever says something bad about me, or about you,” Kurt insisted, anger fading into somber defeat. Reaching into his backpack, he pulled out another book and placed it on top of the pile he'd already given to Finn, “I got this copy of Sun Tzu out of the library for you. Read it, then maybe you'll understand why you messed up today.”
Finn grit his teeth at Kurt's condescending tone and slammed the door on his retreating back. Stomping up the stairs, he threw the pile of books down on his desk and turned his X-Box on, if actual violence had built up all his aggression then he would have to take it out through simulated violence.
*
Finn passed the first two days of his suspension exerting his anger through video games and practicing on the drums. On the morning of the third day, the man who lived next door came round to complain about the noise and so Finn spent the morning of that day laid out on his bed doing nothing.
By the time afternoon rolled around, he decided to inspect the pile of books Kurt had delivered. Pushing Sun Tzu to one side resentfully, he found the assignment Ms. Lenin had provided for him: to finish translating the entirety of Act 1 of Romeo and Juliet into Spanish. Finn groaned at the concept, it was irritating to translate the Shakespearean into modern English and then into Spanish, but wary of the elderly teacher's wrath should be not comply, he turned his laptop on and set to work.
By Friday, Finn had done the best he could with the work he'd been set. He knew that much of it would fall well below the expectations of his teachers but he couldn't quite bring himself to care. Returning the books to a tidy stack on his desk, he uncovered the copy of Sun Tzu that he had rejected previously and out of sheer boredom opened to a random page.
That afternoon in his phone call to Will, he expressed his confusion with the book, “Was Noah Chinese?”
There was a brief pause as Will struggled to make sense on the question, “I can't say specifically since it can't be proven when or where the events of the Bible took place, but Noah was a forefather of the Israelites so I wouldn't think so. Why do you ask?”
Finn explained the chain of logic that had led to his question, “Kurt gave me a book, Sun Tzu and the Art of War. Some of it's about fighting but a lot of it has to do with animals, since it's so old and stuff, I thought maybe it took place on Noah's Ark and that's why all the animals are in it.”
“Finn, the animal parts are allegory,” Will explained patiently.
“Is that a baby alligator?” Finn questioned uncertainly.
“No, it's...” Will stopped to take a breath, “How can I explain this? The animals aren't real, like when Sun Tzu compares the flea and the ox, he isn't really suggesting you take a flea to battle with you. They're a comparison, think about how they compare to a real life scenario. With the flea and the ox, it just means that sometimes a small force can take down a large opponent.”
Finn considered his lover's words for a few moments, “I guess that makes sense.”
Will had stayed silent on the topic of Finn's suspension all week but with the opportunity to express his opinion he couldn't remain silent, “I think Kurt was just trying to teach you that you should choose your battles carefully. A clever general only fights the battles he knows he can win.”
“But I did win,” Finn pointed out.
“Why did you start the fight?” Will queried.
“They called Kurt a faggot,” Finn answered, anger still present in his voice when he considered it.
“Have they stopped calling Kurt a faggot?” Will challenged.
Finn stopped to consider it and realized that his bravado had ultimately yielded no results other than his own suspension, “I'm an idiot.”
“I would say you're a noble idiot,” Will soothed.
“Do you think Kurt hates me?” Finn worried.
“That boy can hold a grudge,” Will admitted. “But I don't think he'll stay mad at you for long. You did have the best intentions.”
“Why is it you can make me feel better without even trying?”
“I'm secretly magic,” Will responded, entirely deadpan. Finn laughed and his mood was lifted even further by the sound of his lover's laughter at the other end.
*
The tension at the table during Thanksgiving was so thick Finn was tempted to suggest they slice it right after Burt was done carving the turkey. He recalled the meal they'd shared at McDonalds not long before and how relaxed they had been.
The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities. It is best to win without fighting.
The Sun Tzu quote entered Finn's mind as he sat, with the tension swimming lazily around the room. So when his mom suggested that they each took the time to state something they were thankful for, he volunteered to go first.
“I'm glad we can all be here together,” He started, then dropped his gaze to his plate. “I'm thankful that you put up with how stupid I can be sometimes and that I didn't ruin this for us all. I'm thankful that you're standing by me even when I make mistakes and that I know I can always lean on you.” He glanced up and saw that his Mom's eyes were getting watery, and so to avoid a scene ended on a less sappy note, “Also, I'm thankful we have real cranberry sauce this year instead of from a can, and for bunny rabbits and payphones and pogo sticks.”
A silence stretched as Finn sank back into his seat, then Kurt stood up dramatically and calmly announced, “Ditto.”
The silence broke as Carole and Burt succumbed to laughter and playful, mocking applause.