Fic: Means to My end
Title: Means to My End
Rating: M
Characters: Will/Finn, various others.
Word count: 5,000-ish.
Summary: Greif is an ugly place. When Carole dies suddenly Finn doesn’t cope well, and Will gets caught up in the middle of it.
Warnings: angst, character death, dub-con, angst, some daddy-kink, some violence, angst.
There were grey walls, and squeaky floors, and Will had no idea what he was doing there. But he’d been called, and he’d come, and he had a crying teenager wrapped around him and wrapped up in him. He knew that he looked shocked. They all did.
Burt Hummel’s stare was empty whenever he met anyone’s eyes. “I don’t know why these things happen,” he said. Kurt was leaning against the wall, one arm wrapped around his waist and his other hand pressed firmly over his mouth.
It struck Will as odd that both boys were crying, but Kurt cried with his face open in public, while Finn buried his against a teacher’s chest. The irony was that Kurt’s honesty left him stripped and alone, while Finn’s attempt to hide brought arms around him in something that might one day feel like comfort.
Will had no idea what the hell he was doing there.
*
Finn stopped coming to Glee. For weeks he stopped coming to school. Kurt would collect homework for him, and promise to share his notes, but no one was under any illusion that Finn would be back any time soon.
“Dad found her,” Kurt said, sitting in a knot of girls with his hands wringing his wrists and Mercedes’ hand on his knee. His hair was lacklustre, and he had bags under his eyes. “In the bed. She’d... we still don’t know what happened. We just don’t know.”
Will tried to do songs that he knew Kurt liked, tried to keep things happy without going overly upbeat. Tried not to ask about Finn too much. Tried not to ask dumb questions.
“I think,” Kurt said to him after practice, “I mean, dad thinks that it might be good if you came and talked to Finn.”
And Will thought of a small pile of reasons why that was a bad idea, starting with his own discomfort and ending in his ability to actually do anything. “Do you think it would actually help?”
And Kurt gave him a look, a long sad empty look. It was the look of someone who was tired, and who was carrying a load that was too heavy, and who didn’t have anywhere to put it down.
“Okay,” Will said. “Okay.”
*
“They must be really worried about me,” Finn said when Will hovered in his doorway. He was spread out on his bed, staring at the ceiling. There were cups filled with water on the chest of drawers by his bed, and sandwiches with a single bite taken out of them.
“Yeah,” Will said. “They are.”
And they stayed like that. Will staring at Finn and Finn staring at the ceiling, a thick silence building in the stale room. Shadows began to stretch and Will had too much time to take in Finn’s room, the signs that he had been lying in bed since the funeral. The signs that the very last thing he wanted was company. Will slowly peeled himself away from the door frame. “I should-”
“Don’t go.” Finn didn’t look at him, or reach for him, but his voice had a creak in it that made Will’s chest ache. It was the only sign that Finn meant what he said.
“Finn,” he said, stepping into the room. He looked at his student, feeling the hopelessness. “I don’t know what you want right now.”
And Finn rolled his head to one side and looked at Will, looked at him with a look of such honest pain that Will felt like a complete idiot. “I want my mom,” Finn said. “I want my dad,” and the creak became a crack and his breathing shook, and when Will sat on the edge of the bed Finn curled around on his side, facing Will but with his face pressed into the covers. He didn’t cry, he just shook and shuddered.
“I don’t want to be an orphan,” he said in a small voice, muffled by duck down and a cowboy-print cover.
Will didn’t know what to do, knew that there was nothing that he could say, so he kept quiet. He ran his fingers through Finn’s hair, and let Finn take his time. Will looked up and through Finn’s open door. Kurt was standing in the hallway, watching them with an impassive face. Will ran his fingers through Finn’s hair again, and Finn’s fingers fisted around his quilt.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured to Finn. “I’ll be here for you whenever you need me.”
When Will looked up again, Kurt was gone, and the hallway was dark.
*
Sometimes they talked. Usually Will talked, saying things about how it’s okay to hurt, and that one day it will hurt less, and eventually moving on to saying things like the world keeps turning, Finn. You can’t stop living over this, Finn. Finn?
“Why do these things happen?” Finn had asked, his voice creaky and Will couldn’t tell if it was from lack of use, or raw from crying.
“I don’t know.”
“You still have both of your parents. Why do you have both and I have none? Why do you get so much, so much time with them?” Finn looked at Will with desperate eyes, wanting answers. “How is any of this fair?”
And Will had wanted so much to lie, but he just didn’t have it in him. “It isn’t,” he replied. “Life isn’t fair, and it’s never going to be.”
Finn’s face hadn’t crumpled, and it hadn’t looked exactly angry. This was something that he already knew. And that was the part that was so painful.
*
He started attending school, but he wasn’t exactly there. Finn spent a lot of time staring into space, looking like he was thinking the world from start to finish. But when he was pulled out of his thoughts, he could never remember them.
“It’s normal,” Emma had assured everyone. “He’s going through a lot, more than he’s ever had to process. He’s probably sorting through a lot of things subconsciously, and that doesn’t leave a lot of energy left for his plain old, every day conscious.”
“But he’ll get better, right?” Burt asked. “This won’t last forever?”
Will answered, though he wasn’t entirely sure where the words came from. “Not forever.”
“He’s mourning more than just his mother,” Emma agreed.
Burt had looked from one teacher to the other. “Look after my boys,” he had said firmly. “Look after both of them.”
Will had no idea where to begin.
*
Finn got into fights. Finn got sent out of classes. Finn skipped altogether. Sometimes he’d hang out in the business district, sometimes he’d sit quietly in Will’s office. At first Will had tried to get him to talk, or had offered to help him with the mounds of work everyone knew he wouldn’t catch up on. But soon enough he just let Finn use his office like a bubble of calm, a place where he could be alone even when they were sitting across from each other. He got used to Finn’s silence.
Often no one knew where he was. Finn was called into Figgins’ office over and over again, and Will followed each time, going up to bat.
“I know that Mr Hudson is having a rough time, Will, but there is some behaviour that we just cannot excuse.”
Finn was holding a tissue to his bleeding knuckles, staring at the carpet like it was fascinating. Karofsky was in the nurse’s office, with ice on his nose.
“We turn a blind eye to everything else that goes on in this school,” Will had replied. “Why not this?” Figgins wouldn’t let him get away with that attitude twice, but it gave Will enough time to grasp Finn by the shoulders and say “You need to start dealing with this, Finn.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Finn had shot back. “I’m getting up and I’m going to school and I’m doing my best.”
And Will had no words to explain how clear it was that Finn wasn’t dealing at all, no way to empathise. “Just... talk more,” he had finally said. “You’re surrounded by people who want to help, who want to listen. Don’t turn your back on that.”
Finn turned his head away, and pressed his lips closed.
*
Three days later Will was pulled out of bed by knocking at his front door, and wondered how he ended up with Finn on his couch at four am. He sat with Finn until the sun rose, not touching, just sitting at opposite ends of the couch, Finn slouched down and Will with his legs crossed, missing his bed. When the sun started to rise, he pulled Finn’s mobile free of his pocket, and sent a text to Kurt.
It’s Mr Schuester. Finn’s with me. Try not to worry.
He waited for a reply, for Kurt to make sure if Finn was okay, but it never came. It had been nearly two months, and people were tired of hearing the wrong answer.
“You shouldn’t be wandering around at night,” he said, because he felt that he needed to say something. “It’s not safe, and you have enough people worrying about you as it is.”
“Sometimes I just... I lose time,” Finn said.
*
Weeks passed. Will saw Rachel touch Finn’s elbow in the halls, saw Quinn reach up to hug him as Finn kept his arms at his sides. He saw Kurt holding his head high, leaping to Finn’s defence when he was called a name, or shoved. As a teacher, Will could realise that most of the students were scared of Finn, scared of his misfortune, worried that it might be contagious. As an adult he knew that eventually Finn’s friends would drift away from him, that the silence and the moods and the high wall that surrounds those in grief would prove to be too much. And there wasn’t a single part of him that knew what to do about it.
“He just needs to connect with someone,” Emma told him. “He needs to know that people won’t leave him, that they won’t give up on him just because it’s hard.”
When Finn turned up on his doorstep a second time, Will let him stay.
*
Sometimes Finn slept. Sometimes Will fell asleep without meaning to. They watched infomercials together. They sat silently, in the dark, waiting for the sun to rise. Sometimes Finn’s body would fall to one side, his head resting on Will’s shoulder. Will would wrap his arm around Finn’s shoulder. This could prompt sleep, or words, or tears, or nothing at all. Sometimes a week would pass without a visit. Will was sure that if he paid enough attention, if they did this enough he could work out the code, could figure out what Finn needed.
In the hazy time between night and morning, when the roads were silent and Finn’s face was pressed wet and hot against Will’s neck, it had seemed so simple that it was almost primal, that it was instinctive. And then the angle of Finn’s face had changed, the wetness of tears became the wetness of an open mouth sucking at Will’s neck.
There was no pattern, Will realised. There were no rules. Just the darkness, and the silence, and the warmth of two islands bumping against each other in the night.
“Finn,” he had said. And it was an empty word, one without context or intention or meaning.
“Please,” Finn had said, and it sounded as empty as Will’s head, as his chest. A big empty sound wanting to be filled.
Will wrapped both of his arms around Finn’s shoulders, and held him close even as Finn pressed his weight and pushed Will onto his back. Even as Finn pressed sloppy, confused kisses against his mouth, broken with the shuddering of that special kind of crying that happens when the tears are all gone. Held him as Finn fell asleep, pinning him in place, pressing the air out of his chest.
*
Will had read every bit of information on the stages of grieving that Emma had given him. He covered all of the resources on teaching a kid who was in mourning. Every scrap of paper, every .pdf file.
“I’m just not sure this is a good idea,” he told Emma. “I’m not sure this is healthy.”
“Healthy?” Burt had said. “He’s finally getting some sleep. He’s eating. Maybe slumber parties aren’t exactly normal, but it’s doing something.” He gave Will a look that was both stern and pleading. “You’re good for him.”
Will tried not to think about Finn’s mouth pressing against his, or Finn’s hands on his body, or the way Finn said ‘please’ less and less these days.
“You’ve both gone through big changes in your lives,” Emma added. “Losses. He identifies with you, Will.” Her look was softer. “This could be good for you too.”
He ran a hand through his hair. Healthy. Right.
*
“I wish they’d all die,” Finn told him. “Any of them. Just to get her back. I keep thinking, what would I do to get her back? Like I could swap one dead person for another.”
Finn’s mouth was wet against Will’s neck, his teeth sharp and careless. The hand that was shoved down the front of Will’s pyjama pants was hot, and rough, and relentless.
“I’d swap anyone,” Finn tells him, staring hard and tight into Will’s eyes as he moved his hand back and forth fast enough to hurt. Of course it hurt. Finn had a forearm braced across Will’s chest, and when he leaned forwards it pressed the air out of Will’s chest, making his ears buzz.
“Anyone.”
*
It would be easier, Will had reflected at one point, if Finn wasn’t changing. If he wasn’t speaking more, focussing more. It would have been so easy to say this is wrong, this isn’t what you need, this isn’t what I want. But one day Will caught sight of something that wasn’t a smile, not just yet, on Finn’s face. And clearly whatever it was that was going on was what Finn needed.
And if it was what Finn needed, then how could it be wrong? If it was what Finn needed, then how could Will not want it?
So when Finn pressed his lips to Will’s skin, Will murmured “Finn,” in response. When Finn’s fingers traced over skin Will reached out and pulled Finn closer, put his hands on Finn’s body and did his best to draw a moan from those downturned lips.
Hands reached and touched in the darkness on the couch, always on the couch. Clothing was removed instead of pulled aside. Hands touched. They groped and grabbed and ground, they touched. And when Finn pressed his body forward in a question, Will arched back in answer. Everything he had, he gave to Finn. Gave his body and his sweat and the words that fell mechanically from behind gritted teeth, and used them to try and fill up that gaping hole in the boy.
Finn made a tight keening noise when he came, his face always pressed against Will’s neck, his chest. Seven months, now, since the hospital. And Will always tried to shudder at the right moment, to make the noises that Finn needed to hear, accept the bruises Finn left. Never coming, never even hard.
But Will couldn’t help but feel the emptiness running through them. Nothing was changing. Finn was moving mechanically, playing a role and everyone could see it. Will wondered if his own stiff movements were any more credible as a performance.
He wondered what Finn wasn’t saying.
*
Kurt’s voice was loud and clear in the hallway, raking sharply across Will’s brain and dragging him out of his thoughts.
“This needs to stop,” Kurt said. “I know what you’re going through, but you can’t keep going on like this, Finn.”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Finn had replied, talking into his locker.
Kurt had grabbed Finn by the shoulder, trying to turn him around, to look at his face. “My mother died, too,” he said, sharp and angry.
The look Finn gave him was cold, and blunt, just like his words. “You were eight.” He paused, and the hairs on the back of Will’s neck stood up. “Do you even remember her?”
Will was familiar with the look on Kurt’s face, the red cheeks, the pointed jaw, the look of contained fury. But then that containment had burst, and Kurt had pulled an arm back and punched Finn. It wasn’t a strong punch, Kurt was too short to do more than hit at Finn’s chest, and Finn was too used to being hit to feel it. But his arm went back, and his hand was a fist, and Will was flying down the corridor before the return punch landed.
Kurt was clutching his cheek as Will’s hands reached Finn’s shoulder. Kurt’s mouth was open in shock as Will fisted his hand in Finn’s shirt and forcibly pulled him away. And, later, he could see how with the force of the movement and the heat of the moment it had made so much sense for Finn to turn into Will and bring his fist up, a sharp blow to the underside of his jaw that snapped his head back, and made him see stars for a moment.
His back hit the lockers, and his hands were still tangled in Finn’s shirt. There was a look of rage on Finn’s face, an animal snarl. There was shouting, and Will was sure that his own voice was in there, though what he said he could never remember. He could remember Finn yelling back. Yelling “Fuck you,” and “you bastard,” and a wild noise that twisted out of him as other hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled him off Will.
But Will had the eerie feeling that Finn wasn’t seeing him at all.
*
They had stopped looking at each other when they talked a long time ago.
“Do you think my mom would be ashamed of me?”
Will shifted. “I think that she would understand that you’re going through something hard, harder than most people. I think she would know that you’re a good person. That you’re just trying to find your way back to that good place again.”
It wasn’t the right answer, nowhere near it. But that was nothing new.
“When you touch a dead person,” Finn had told him, “they’re not just cold. They suck the heat out of you.”
“Living people can do that too,” Will had replied, and they hadn’t spoken after that.
*
“I’m sorry,” Burt said to him when he came to collect Finn.
“It’s fine,” Will had replied, his head tilted to one side and an ice pack pressed to the side of his jaw. He tried a smile, and said “It’s not the first time I’ve been beaten up at high school.” To recover from the awkward moment he added, “And Kurt seems to be okay,” which was a lie, a shameless lie. “He won’t get a black eye.”
“Well, that’s something to be thankful for.” Burt looked Will square in the eye, and Will had to make an effort to sit still under the weight of his gaze. “What the hell is going on with my boys?” he asked. “Grief and sadness, okay. And anger, I can certainly get the anger. But this?”
Will pulled the ice pack away, and worked his jaw experimentally. “They’re both fucked up right now,” he said.
Burt looked at him for a long moment, and then turned his head away as his lips curved into a wry smile. “I think that’s the most honest you’ve ever been,” he said. “What do we do about it? Is... are they going to be safe together?”
Will had a horrible moment of premonition, of where this conversation would eventually lead. “I think Finn’s proven his point,” he said, returning the ice to his jaw. “And I think Kurt will give up on him for the moment.”
“You think that’s a good thing?”
Will thought of the ache in his jaw, of the anger in Finn’s eyes, the bite of nails into flesh and the sounds that got swallowed into the night.
“It’s not the worst thing that could happen.”
*
Finn never apologised. He forced his mouth against Will’s at night, pressed his thumb hard into the bruise on his jaw, making Will wince and try to pull away. Finn’s hands were hard on Will’s body, hand shoved down his pants, forcing him against the wall just inside his front door.
“You’re not allowed to leave me,” Finn breathed into Will’s ear.
“I won’t,” Will replied, his face pressed against the cool paint.
Finn rocked against him, grinding through denim and cotton. His hips changed rhythm as he pulled Will’s belt open, as he shoved blue denim down lean thighs, but they never stopped moving. Didn’t stop as he pressed into Will too hard and too fast and too soon, as Will cried out and the sound didn’t quite cover Finn hissing “You left me,” into the back of Will’s neck.
“You left me,” he said, over and over. “You went and you fucking died and didn’t you know that I needed you? We needed you and you fucking left.”
“I’m sorry,” Will said softly, his hands either side of his head on the wall. Finn’s teeth bit sharply though his shirt and into his shoulder.
“You left” and “I’m sorry” blending together with harsh breaths, tightening into a silent climax.
A large part of his mind felt numb and asleep. The rest wasn’t at all surprised. When Will showered later he didn’t have the energy to feel angry or violated. This wasn’t about him, and he clung to that.
*
“You’ve been very quiet lately,” Emma said to him over lunch. Will had taken to eating in his office, and Emma had long since given up keeping him company.
“I’ve had a lot on my mind,” he replied.
“I know,” Emma said, taking a step into the room. “And that’s what’s worrying me.” She took a deep breath, and Will watched with detachment as she smoothed her hands over her skirt. “I know that working with kids like Finn is hard, but you can’t let it drag you down. You need to look after yourself too, Will. You need to be healthy so they can be healthy.”
Will stared at her for a moment too long, and saw her fidget under his gaze. “Is anyone really healthy?” he asks her. “Or do we all just pretend?” She flinched, and Will pressed harder against that sore spot. “I envy you,” he said.
Emma took a moment to compose herself, to realign her thoughts and Will was amazed that he could watch her put herself back together. “I’ve been getting the feeling,” she said slowly, “that you’ve been so busy helping Finn with his problems that you haven’t been dealing with your own.”
Will thought about that. He thought about Finn listening to the messages on his answering machine in the dead of night, when Will was pretending to be asleep because that was just so much easier, and deleting them. In some ways, the timing was perfect. Would he have been able to hide this thing from his wife? Probably. They had hidden so much from each other, what was one more thing? From Emma? He would have tried. He knows that deep down.
None of his relationships have ever been about honesty.
“You’re a role model,” Emma reminded him. “Finn looks up to you. Like a father.”
“I know,” Will had replied, and a strange shaky laugh was pulled out of him by invisible fingers. “That’s the problem.”
*
The school year ended. There was talk of whether Finn would repeat the year or not. He didn’t get the grades, but then, how many other kids hadn’t? Ken pressed that Finn was a good kid. Emma insisted that holding him back a year wouldn’t help his emotional growth. Sue pointed out that it was high school, and that if he wasn’t illiterate he was ahead of the herd.
Will stared, not looking at anything, not thinking about anything. How many times had he intervened already? People expected him now. When Finn was in trouble, Will would be there in moments. Would be there acting like he knew the right thing to do, like he had any fucking clue at all. And there was that deep silence to deal with in the moments when he didn’t speak, moment when eyes were on him waiting for an assurance that he had no right to give.
He shoved his chair back from the table. “I can’t be objective about this.” Let someone else sort this out. Let someone else take responsibility.
The corridors were empty. It was summer, outside. Sunlight fell from the sky, warming cement, teasing skin. Will kept to the shadows.
*
He spent the first few weeks of Summer break at his parents', in bars, places where it would be hard to find him. When he went home he would lie on his couch and stare at the ceiling until he heard the mat in front of his door lifted up, a key turning in the lock, and then he would close his eyes and focus on the rise and fall of his own chest. How many months had it been since he’d slept in his own bed?
One beer, two beers. Something that kept his hands busy as he peeled the label from bottles. Something that distracted from the dryness of his mouth, the bitter taste behind his teeth. A wall of coloured glass and coloured liquor behind the bar for his eyes to stare at. Enough distractions and he stopped thinking altogether.
Stopped right up until a small body sat on the stool next to him, and a familiar voice said, “I’ve been making eyes at you since you walked in and you haven’t even looked up once. Now I know why I never bothered with playing nice.”
When Will kept playing with the bottle in his hands, April leant closer and nudged his shoulder. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”
And Will had laughed that strange laugh that had somehow become his own, and done his best to ignore the worried look in April’s eyes.
“I’m meant to be the hopeless drunk and you’re meant to pep me up,” April told him later over a bowl of hot chips. “So bare with me if I make some mistakes.”
“I’m not a drunk,” Will had replied.
April grinned at him. “Hey, you got your lines down perfect,” she said with that big white smile of hers.
Will let his forehead dip down and rest on the sticky table. April patted his head, tugging gently at his hair every now and then. Slowly Will rolled his head to one side, staring dully out across the bowling alley, and he began to talk.
When he finished, April let out a low whistle. “Boy, you just made my life seem dull, and that’s no easy task. You sure you don’t want any of these?”
Will, still slumped over the table, shook his head. “What happened with ‘The Wiz’?” he asked her.
April waved a vague hand and looked down the alley to the fluorescent lights of the bar. “Oh, the same things that always happen.” She looked down at Will, and smiled softly at him, her eyes a little sad. “And whenever I run out of life all I have to do is come home, and there’s something here that gets me going again. Maybe it’s something in the water.” She looked away again. “You know that you can’t keep on like this? Some of us were meant to live lives that ain’t worth shit. But you don’t have it in you.”
Will pulled himself upright. “I’m learning,” he said.
April looked back at him with bright, sad eyes. “Oh, honey,” she said, and her thin arms wrapped around him in a way that was so unfamiliar.
*
He sent Finn a text sometime around two in the morning.
I can’t keep doing this.
April had deleted the ‘I’m sorry’ he’d put at the end. “You can’t save us all, Will,” she’d said. “Heck, you can’t save any of us. You just stand on the shore and throw out the life preservers. Them that want to drown are going to do it no matter what you do.”
Will wanted to protest, and he got as far as “Finn needs...” before his throat closed over.
“That boy doesn’t know what he needs. And you don’t know what to give him. And that’s how you ened up in this mess,” April told him, pushing another plastic cup of beer over to him. “Trust me,” she said, “I’m an expert on these kinds of things.”
When Will stared desolately across the room April shoved him in the shoulder. “Hey, repeat after me: the guilt I feel is not mine.”
Will laughed that hard, broken laugh again, and didn’t know what to do when April put her arms around him again.
“Hug back, silly,” she said. And after a long moment she added, “You’re going to be all right.” Will started shaking, because he knew he wasn’t.
*
Finn was in front of his door before dark, early even in light of the longer days. Something different in his eyes, maybe something different in Will’s face. It didn’t hurt when Finn thrust into him, almost gentle, partway familiar. Finn’s hands were on him, soft, tracing the lines of muscles, the lines around his eyes. A smooth palm rubbing against his cock, Finn’s thrusts were slow and easy until Will hardened beneath him. Until Will’s hips rolled and Finn had a hand on his thigh, holding everything strong and steady. When Will came it tore through him, ripped him open and his eyes were wet even before the come started cooling on his chest.
Finn had kissed him. How many weeks since a kiss? And instead of the please that this mess had started with, he said sorry over and over. They tried to put themselves back together, but they’d been broken for so long that the pieces were all mixed up.
“I didn’t mean it,” he said.
“I know,” Will replied.
“I didn’t...”
“I know.”
Rating: M
Characters: Will/Finn, various others.
Word count: 5,000-ish.
Summary: Greif is an ugly place. When Carole dies suddenly Finn doesn’t cope well, and Will gets caught up in the middle of it.
Warnings: angst, character death, dub-con, angst, some daddy-kink, some violence, angst.
There were grey walls, and squeaky floors, and Will had no idea what he was doing there. But he’d been called, and he’d come, and he had a crying teenager wrapped around him and wrapped up in him. He knew that he looked shocked. They all did.
Burt Hummel’s stare was empty whenever he met anyone’s eyes. “I don’t know why these things happen,” he said. Kurt was leaning against the wall, one arm wrapped around his waist and his other hand pressed firmly over his mouth.
It struck Will as odd that both boys were crying, but Kurt cried with his face open in public, while Finn buried his against a teacher’s chest. The irony was that Kurt’s honesty left him stripped and alone, while Finn’s attempt to hide brought arms around him in something that might one day feel like comfort.
Will had no idea what the hell he was doing there.
*
Finn stopped coming to Glee. For weeks he stopped coming to school. Kurt would collect homework for him, and promise to share his notes, but no one was under any illusion that Finn would be back any time soon.
“Dad found her,” Kurt said, sitting in a knot of girls with his hands wringing his wrists and Mercedes’ hand on his knee. His hair was lacklustre, and he had bags under his eyes. “In the bed. She’d... we still don’t know what happened. We just don’t know.”
Will tried to do songs that he knew Kurt liked, tried to keep things happy without going overly upbeat. Tried not to ask about Finn too much. Tried not to ask dumb questions.
“I think,” Kurt said to him after practice, “I mean, dad thinks that it might be good if you came and talked to Finn.”
And Will thought of a small pile of reasons why that was a bad idea, starting with his own discomfort and ending in his ability to actually do anything. “Do you think it would actually help?”
And Kurt gave him a look, a long sad empty look. It was the look of someone who was tired, and who was carrying a load that was too heavy, and who didn’t have anywhere to put it down.
“Okay,” Will said. “Okay.”
*
“They must be really worried about me,” Finn said when Will hovered in his doorway. He was spread out on his bed, staring at the ceiling. There were cups filled with water on the chest of drawers by his bed, and sandwiches with a single bite taken out of them.
“Yeah,” Will said. “They are.”
And they stayed like that. Will staring at Finn and Finn staring at the ceiling, a thick silence building in the stale room. Shadows began to stretch and Will had too much time to take in Finn’s room, the signs that he had been lying in bed since the funeral. The signs that the very last thing he wanted was company. Will slowly peeled himself away from the door frame. “I should-”
“Don’t go.” Finn didn’t look at him, or reach for him, but his voice had a creak in it that made Will’s chest ache. It was the only sign that Finn meant what he said.
“Finn,” he said, stepping into the room. He looked at his student, feeling the hopelessness. “I don’t know what you want right now.”
And Finn rolled his head to one side and looked at Will, looked at him with a look of such honest pain that Will felt like a complete idiot. “I want my mom,” Finn said. “I want my dad,” and the creak became a crack and his breathing shook, and when Will sat on the edge of the bed Finn curled around on his side, facing Will but with his face pressed into the covers. He didn’t cry, he just shook and shuddered.
“I don’t want to be an orphan,” he said in a small voice, muffled by duck down and a cowboy-print cover.
Will didn’t know what to do, knew that there was nothing that he could say, so he kept quiet. He ran his fingers through Finn’s hair, and let Finn take his time. Will looked up and through Finn’s open door. Kurt was standing in the hallway, watching them with an impassive face. Will ran his fingers through Finn’s hair again, and Finn’s fingers fisted around his quilt.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured to Finn. “I’ll be here for you whenever you need me.”
When Will looked up again, Kurt was gone, and the hallway was dark.
*
Sometimes they talked. Usually Will talked, saying things about how it’s okay to hurt, and that one day it will hurt less, and eventually moving on to saying things like the world keeps turning, Finn. You can’t stop living over this, Finn. Finn?
“Why do these things happen?” Finn had asked, his voice creaky and Will couldn’t tell if it was from lack of use, or raw from crying.
“I don’t know.”
“You still have both of your parents. Why do you have both and I have none? Why do you get so much, so much time with them?” Finn looked at Will with desperate eyes, wanting answers. “How is any of this fair?”
And Will had wanted so much to lie, but he just didn’t have it in him. “It isn’t,” he replied. “Life isn’t fair, and it’s never going to be.”
Finn’s face hadn’t crumpled, and it hadn’t looked exactly angry. This was something that he already knew. And that was the part that was so painful.
*
He started attending school, but he wasn’t exactly there. Finn spent a lot of time staring into space, looking like he was thinking the world from start to finish. But when he was pulled out of his thoughts, he could never remember them.
“It’s normal,” Emma had assured everyone. “He’s going through a lot, more than he’s ever had to process. He’s probably sorting through a lot of things subconsciously, and that doesn’t leave a lot of energy left for his plain old, every day conscious.”
“But he’ll get better, right?” Burt asked. “This won’t last forever?”
Will answered, though he wasn’t entirely sure where the words came from. “Not forever.”
“He’s mourning more than just his mother,” Emma agreed.
Burt had looked from one teacher to the other. “Look after my boys,” he had said firmly. “Look after both of them.”
Will had no idea where to begin.
*
Finn got into fights. Finn got sent out of classes. Finn skipped altogether. Sometimes he’d hang out in the business district, sometimes he’d sit quietly in Will’s office. At first Will had tried to get him to talk, or had offered to help him with the mounds of work everyone knew he wouldn’t catch up on. But soon enough he just let Finn use his office like a bubble of calm, a place where he could be alone even when they were sitting across from each other. He got used to Finn’s silence.
Often no one knew where he was. Finn was called into Figgins’ office over and over again, and Will followed each time, going up to bat.
“I know that Mr Hudson is having a rough time, Will, but there is some behaviour that we just cannot excuse.”
Finn was holding a tissue to his bleeding knuckles, staring at the carpet like it was fascinating. Karofsky was in the nurse’s office, with ice on his nose.
“We turn a blind eye to everything else that goes on in this school,” Will had replied. “Why not this?” Figgins wouldn’t let him get away with that attitude twice, but it gave Will enough time to grasp Finn by the shoulders and say “You need to start dealing with this, Finn.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Finn had shot back. “I’m getting up and I’m going to school and I’m doing my best.”
And Will had no words to explain how clear it was that Finn wasn’t dealing at all, no way to empathise. “Just... talk more,” he had finally said. “You’re surrounded by people who want to help, who want to listen. Don’t turn your back on that.”
Finn turned his head away, and pressed his lips closed.
*
Three days later Will was pulled out of bed by knocking at his front door, and wondered how he ended up with Finn on his couch at four am. He sat with Finn until the sun rose, not touching, just sitting at opposite ends of the couch, Finn slouched down and Will with his legs crossed, missing his bed. When the sun started to rise, he pulled Finn’s mobile free of his pocket, and sent a text to Kurt.
It’s Mr Schuester. Finn’s with me. Try not to worry.
He waited for a reply, for Kurt to make sure if Finn was okay, but it never came. It had been nearly two months, and people were tired of hearing the wrong answer.
“You shouldn’t be wandering around at night,” he said, because he felt that he needed to say something. “It’s not safe, and you have enough people worrying about you as it is.”
“Sometimes I just... I lose time,” Finn said.
*
Weeks passed. Will saw Rachel touch Finn’s elbow in the halls, saw Quinn reach up to hug him as Finn kept his arms at his sides. He saw Kurt holding his head high, leaping to Finn’s defence when he was called a name, or shoved. As a teacher, Will could realise that most of the students were scared of Finn, scared of his misfortune, worried that it might be contagious. As an adult he knew that eventually Finn’s friends would drift away from him, that the silence and the moods and the high wall that surrounds those in grief would prove to be too much. And there wasn’t a single part of him that knew what to do about it.
“He just needs to connect with someone,” Emma told him. “He needs to know that people won’t leave him, that they won’t give up on him just because it’s hard.”
When Finn turned up on his doorstep a second time, Will let him stay.
*
Sometimes Finn slept. Sometimes Will fell asleep without meaning to. They watched infomercials together. They sat silently, in the dark, waiting for the sun to rise. Sometimes Finn’s body would fall to one side, his head resting on Will’s shoulder. Will would wrap his arm around Finn’s shoulder. This could prompt sleep, or words, or tears, or nothing at all. Sometimes a week would pass without a visit. Will was sure that if he paid enough attention, if they did this enough he could work out the code, could figure out what Finn needed.
In the hazy time between night and morning, when the roads were silent and Finn’s face was pressed wet and hot against Will’s neck, it had seemed so simple that it was almost primal, that it was instinctive. And then the angle of Finn’s face had changed, the wetness of tears became the wetness of an open mouth sucking at Will’s neck.
There was no pattern, Will realised. There were no rules. Just the darkness, and the silence, and the warmth of two islands bumping against each other in the night.
“Finn,” he had said. And it was an empty word, one without context or intention or meaning.
“Please,” Finn had said, and it sounded as empty as Will’s head, as his chest. A big empty sound wanting to be filled.
Will wrapped both of his arms around Finn’s shoulders, and held him close even as Finn pressed his weight and pushed Will onto his back. Even as Finn pressed sloppy, confused kisses against his mouth, broken with the shuddering of that special kind of crying that happens when the tears are all gone. Held him as Finn fell asleep, pinning him in place, pressing the air out of his chest.
*
Will had read every bit of information on the stages of grieving that Emma had given him. He covered all of the resources on teaching a kid who was in mourning. Every scrap of paper, every .pdf file.
“I’m just not sure this is a good idea,” he told Emma. “I’m not sure this is healthy.”
“Healthy?” Burt had said. “He’s finally getting some sleep. He’s eating. Maybe slumber parties aren’t exactly normal, but it’s doing something.” He gave Will a look that was both stern and pleading. “You’re good for him.”
Will tried not to think about Finn’s mouth pressing against his, or Finn’s hands on his body, or the way Finn said ‘please’ less and less these days.
“You’ve both gone through big changes in your lives,” Emma added. “Losses. He identifies with you, Will.” Her look was softer. “This could be good for you too.”
He ran a hand through his hair. Healthy. Right.
*
“I wish they’d all die,” Finn told him. “Any of them. Just to get her back. I keep thinking, what would I do to get her back? Like I could swap one dead person for another.”
Finn’s mouth was wet against Will’s neck, his teeth sharp and careless. The hand that was shoved down the front of Will’s pyjama pants was hot, and rough, and relentless.
“I’d swap anyone,” Finn tells him, staring hard and tight into Will’s eyes as he moved his hand back and forth fast enough to hurt. Of course it hurt. Finn had a forearm braced across Will’s chest, and when he leaned forwards it pressed the air out of Will’s chest, making his ears buzz.
“Anyone.”
*
It would be easier, Will had reflected at one point, if Finn wasn’t changing. If he wasn’t speaking more, focussing more. It would have been so easy to say this is wrong, this isn’t what you need, this isn’t what I want. But one day Will caught sight of something that wasn’t a smile, not just yet, on Finn’s face. And clearly whatever it was that was going on was what Finn needed.
And if it was what Finn needed, then how could it be wrong? If it was what Finn needed, then how could Will not want it?
So when Finn pressed his lips to Will’s skin, Will murmured “Finn,” in response. When Finn’s fingers traced over skin Will reached out and pulled Finn closer, put his hands on Finn’s body and did his best to draw a moan from those downturned lips.
Hands reached and touched in the darkness on the couch, always on the couch. Clothing was removed instead of pulled aside. Hands touched. They groped and grabbed and ground, they touched. And when Finn pressed his body forward in a question, Will arched back in answer. Everything he had, he gave to Finn. Gave his body and his sweat and the words that fell mechanically from behind gritted teeth, and used them to try and fill up that gaping hole in the boy.
Finn made a tight keening noise when he came, his face always pressed against Will’s neck, his chest. Seven months, now, since the hospital. And Will always tried to shudder at the right moment, to make the noises that Finn needed to hear, accept the bruises Finn left. Never coming, never even hard.
But Will couldn’t help but feel the emptiness running through them. Nothing was changing. Finn was moving mechanically, playing a role and everyone could see it. Will wondered if his own stiff movements were any more credible as a performance.
He wondered what Finn wasn’t saying.
*
Kurt’s voice was loud and clear in the hallway, raking sharply across Will’s brain and dragging him out of his thoughts.
“This needs to stop,” Kurt said. “I know what you’re going through, but you can’t keep going on like this, Finn.”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Finn had replied, talking into his locker.
Kurt had grabbed Finn by the shoulder, trying to turn him around, to look at his face. “My mother died, too,” he said, sharp and angry.
The look Finn gave him was cold, and blunt, just like his words. “You were eight.” He paused, and the hairs on the back of Will’s neck stood up. “Do you even remember her?”
Will was familiar with the look on Kurt’s face, the red cheeks, the pointed jaw, the look of contained fury. But then that containment had burst, and Kurt had pulled an arm back and punched Finn. It wasn’t a strong punch, Kurt was too short to do more than hit at Finn’s chest, and Finn was too used to being hit to feel it. But his arm went back, and his hand was a fist, and Will was flying down the corridor before the return punch landed.
Kurt was clutching his cheek as Will’s hands reached Finn’s shoulder. Kurt’s mouth was open in shock as Will fisted his hand in Finn’s shirt and forcibly pulled him away. And, later, he could see how with the force of the movement and the heat of the moment it had made so much sense for Finn to turn into Will and bring his fist up, a sharp blow to the underside of his jaw that snapped his head back, and made him see stars for a moment.
His back hit the lockers, and his hands were still tangled in Finn’s shirt. There was a look of rage on Finn’s face, an animal snarl. There was shouting, and Will was sure that his own voice was in there, though what he said he could never remember. He could remember Finn yelling back. Yelling “Fuck you,” and “you bastard,” and a wild noise that twisted out of him as other hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled him off Will.
But Will had the eerie feeling that Finn wasn’t seeing him at all.
*
They had stopped looking at each other when they talked a long time ago.
“Do you think my mom would be ashamed of me?”
Will shifted. “I think that she would understand that you’re going through something hard, harder than most people. I think she would know that you’re a good person. That you’re just trying to find your way back to that good place again.”
It wasn’t the right answer, nowhere near it. But that was nothing new.
“When you touch a dead person,” Finn had told him, “they’re not just cold. They suck the heat out of you.”
“Living people can do that too,” Will had replied, and they hadn’t spoken after that.
*
“I’m sorry,” Burt said to him when he came to collect Finn.
“It’s fine,” Will had replied, his head tilted to one side and an ice pack pressed to the side of his jaw. He tried a smile, and said “It’s not the first time I’ve been beaten up at high school.” To recover from the awkward moment he added, “And Kurt seems to be okay,” which was a lie, a shameless lie. “He won’t get a black eye.”
“Well, that’s something to be thankful for.” Burt looked Will square in the eye, and Will had to make an effort to sit still under the weight of his gaze. “What the hell is going on with my boys?” he asked. “Grief and sadness, okay. And anger, I can certainly get the anger. But this?”
Will pulled the ice pack away, and worked his jaw experimentally. “They’re both fucked up right now,” he said.
Burt looked at him for a long moment, and then turned his head away as his lips curved into a wry smile. “I think that’s the most honest you’ve ever been,” he said. “What do we do about it? Is... are they going to be safe together?”
Will had a horrible moment of premonition, of where this conversation would eventually lead. “I think Finn’s proven his point,” he said, returning the ice to his jaw. “And I think Kurt will give up on him for the moment.”
“You think that’s a good thing?”
Will thought of the ache in his jaw, of the anger in Finn’s eyes, the bite of nails into flesh and the sounds that got swallowed into the night.
“It’s not the worst thing that could happen.”
*
Finn never apologised. He forced his mouth against Will’s at night, pressed his thumb hard into the bruise on his jaw, making Will wince and try to pull away. Finn’s hands were hard on Will’s body, hand shoved down his pants, forcing him against the wall just inside his front door.
“You’re not allowed to leave me,” Finn breathed into Will’s ear.
“I won’t,” Will replied, his face pressed against the cool paint.
Finn rocked against him, grinding through denim and cotton. His hips changed rhythm as he pulled Will’s belt open, as he shoved blue denim down lean thighs, but they never stopped moving. Didn’t stop as he pressed into Will too hard and too fast and too soon, as Will cried out and the sound didn’t quite cover Finn hissing “You left me,” into the back of Will’s neck.
“You left me,” he said, over and over. “You went and you fucking died and didn’t you know that I needed you? We needed you and you fucking left.”
“I’m sorry,” Will said softly, his hands either side of his head on the wall. Finn’s teeth bit sharply though his shirt and into his shoulder.
“You left” and “I’m sorry” blending together with harsh breaths, tightening into a silent climax.
A large part of his mind felt numb and asleep. The rest wasn’t at all surprised. When Will showered later he didn’t have the energy to feel angry or violated. This wasn’t about him, and he clung to that.
*
“You’ve been very quiet lately,” Emma said to him over lunch. Will had taken to eating in his office, and Emma had long since given up keeping him company.
“I’ve had a lot on my mind,” he replied.
“I know,” Emma said, taking a step into the room. “And that’s what’s worrying me.” She took a deep breath, and Will watched with detachment as she smoothed her hands over her skirt. “I know that working with kids like Finn is hard, but you can’t let it drag you down. You need to look after yourself too, Will. You need to be healthy so they can be healthy.”
Will stared at her for a moment too long, and saw her fidget under his gaze. “Is anyone really healthy?” he asks her. “Or do we all just pretend?” She flinched, and Will pressed harder against that sore spot. “I envy you,” he said.
Emma took a moment to compose herself, to realign her thoughts and Will was amazed that he could watch her put herself back together. “I’ve been getting the feeling,” she said slowly, “that you’ve been so busy helping Finn with his problems that you haven’t been dealing with your own.”
Will thought about that. He thought about Finn listening to the messages on his answering machine in the dead of night, when Will was pretending to be asleep because that was just so much easier, and deleting them. In some ways, the timing was perfect. Would he have been able to hide this thing from his wife? Probably. They had hidden so much from each other, what was one more thing? From Emma? He would have tried. He knows that deep down.
None of his relationships have ever been about honesty.
“You’re a role model,” Emma reminded him. “Finn looks up to you. Like a father.”
“I know,” Will had replied, and a strange shaky laugh was pulled out of him by invisible fingers. “That’s the problem.”
*
The school year ended. There was talk of whether Finn would repeat the year or not. He didn’t get the grades, but then, how many other kids hadn’t? Ken pressed that Finn was a good kid. Emma insisted that holding him back a year wouldn’t help his emotional growth. Sue pointed out that it was high school, and that if he wasn’t illiterate he was ahead of the herd.
Will stared, not looking at anything, not thinking about anything. How many times had he intervened already? People expected him now. When Finn was in trouble, Will would be there in moments. Would be there acting like he knew the right thing to do, like he had any fucking clue at all. And there was that deep silence to deal with in the moments when he didn’t speak, moment when eyes were on him waiting for an assurance that he had no right to give.
He shoved his chair back from the table. “I can’t be objective about this.” Let someone else sort this out. Let someone else take responsibility.
The corridors were empty. It was summer, outside. Sunlight fell from the sky, warming cement, teasing skin. Will kept to the shadows.
*
He spent the first few weeks of Summer break at his parents', in bars, places where it would be hard to find him. When he went home he would lie on his couch and stare at the ceiling until he heard the mat in front of his door lifted up, a key turning in the lock, and then he would close his eyes and focus on the rise and fall of his own chest. How many months had it been since he’d slept in his own bed?
One beer, two beers. Something that kept his hands busy as he peeled the label from bottles. Something that distracted from the dryness of his mouth, the bitter taste behind his teeth. A wall of coloured glass and coloured liquor behind the bar for his eyes to stare at. Enough distractions and he stopped thinking altogether.
Stopped right up until a small body sat on the stool next to him, and a familiar voice said, “I’ve been making eyes at you since you walked in and you haven’t even looked up once. Now I know why I never bothered with playing nice.”
When Will kept playing with the bottle in his hands, April leant closer and nudged his shoulder. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”
And Will had laughed that strange laugh that had somehow become his own, and done his best to ignore the worried look in April’s eyes.
“I’m meant to be the hopeless drunk and you’re meant to pep me up,” April told him later over a bowl of hot chips. “So bare with me if I make some mistakes.”
“I’m not a drunk,” Will had replied.
April grinned at him. “Hey, you got your lines down perfect,” she said with that big white smile of hers.
Will let his forehead dip down and rest on the sticky table. April patted his head, tugging gently at his hair every now and then. Slowly Will rolled his head to one side, staring dully out across the bowling alley, and he began to talk.
When he finished, April let out a low whistle. “Boy, you just made my life seem dull, and that’s no easy task. You sure you don’t want any of these?”
Will, still slumped over the table, shook his head. “What happened with ‘The Wiz’?” he asked her.
April waved a vague hand and looked down the alley to the fluorescent lights of the bar. “Oh, the same things that always happen.” She looked down at Will, and smiled softly at him, her eyes a little sad. “And whenever I run out of life all I have to do is come home, and there’s something here that gets me going again. Maybe it’s something in the water.” She looked away again. “You know that you can’t keep on like this? Some of us were meant to live lives that ain’t worth shit. But you don’t have it in you.”
Will pulled himself upright. “I’m learning,” he said.
April looked back at him with bright, sad eyes. “Oh, honey,” she said, and her thin arms wrapped around him in a way that was so unfamiliar.
*
He sent Finn a text sometime around two in the morning.
I can’t keep doing this.
April had deleted the ‘I’m sorry’ he’d put at the end. “You can’t save us all, Will,” she’d said. “Heck, you can’t save any of us. You just stand on the shore and throw out the life preservers. Them that want to drown are going to do it no matter what you do.”
Will wanted to protest, and he got as far as “Finn needs...” before his throat closed over.
“That boy doesn’t know what he needs. And you don’t know what to give him. And that’s how you ened up in this mess,” April told him, pushing another plastic cup of beer over to him. “Trust me,” she said, “I’m an expert on these kinds of things.”
When Will stared desolately across the room April shoved him in the shoulder. “Hey, repeat after me: the guilt I feel is not mine.”
Will laughed that hard, broken laugh again, and didn’t know what to do when April put her arms around him again.
“Hug back, silly,” she said. And after a long moment she added, “You’re going to be all right.” Will started shaking, because he knew he wasn’t.
*
Finn was in front of his door before dark, early even in light of the longer days. Something different in his eyes, maybe something different in Will’s face. It didn’t hurt when Finn thrust into him, almost gentle, partway familiar. Finn’s hands were on him, soft, tracing the lines of muscles, the lines around his eyes. A smooth palm rubbing against his cock, Finn’s thrusts were slow and easy until Will hardened beneath him. Until Will’s hips rolled and Finn had a hand on his thigh, holding everything strong and steady. When Will came it tore through him, ripped him open and his eyes were wet even before the come started cooling on his chest.
Finn had kissed him. How many weeks since a kiss? And instead of the please that this mess had started with, he said sorry over and over. They tried to put themselves back together, but they’d been broken for so long that the pieces were all mixed up.
“I didn’t mean it,” he said.
“I know,” Will replied.
“I didn’t...”
“I know.”