Ladies And Gentlemen, Listen Up Please: Finn (14/29)
Title: Ladies And Gentlemen, Listen Up Please: Finn (14/29)
Pairing: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce, minor Artie Abrams/Tina Cohen-Chang
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: AU
Summary: “Sometimes, people are born a little different.”
The first time it happens, it scares the living crap out of him.
Finn Hudson, sixteen years old, prides himself on being a pretty regular guy. That’s his thing, the bag he’s happiest carrying: Regular Guy. He likes sleeping, eating, video games, porn. He plays football and scrapes by in school, and although he’s not the greatest at either, they make getting up worth doing. He’s happy living in Philly with his mom-happy with the dynamic between them of mutual protection: she feeds him, keeps him clothed in flannel shirts and monster-sized jeans, and he keeps her safe from men who want nothing to do with love and even less to do with Finn himself. It’s the fairest trade he can think of.
Sometimes, when no one’s around, he sings. He likes that best of all-it’s easy, and makes his heart swell, and maybe it’s not the coolest hobby to have, but it’s not like he cares about showing it off to other people or whatever. He just likes to do it. Belting some quality Styx or Survivor tunes is just…the best.
So, yeah, he’s Finn Hudson: Regular Guy Extraordinaire (his mom likes to tack that last word onto the things he does, her eyes gleaming with pride, and it’s not something he would normally toss around in daily conversation, but whatever). He’s happy. He’s got the best mom a guy could ask for, the best friend a guy could deal with (Puck’s not, like, a nice kid, but he’s a good dude, and that’s all Finn cares about). He’s got a rockin’ drum set and a comfortable bed, not to mention a freezer that boasts an endless supply of Bagel Bites. He’s on top of the damn world.
The first time it happens, he gets a glimpse of all of that going away.
He’s sitting on the couch, Xbox controller gripped in both hands, twisting his shoulders this way and that as he tries to beat an opponent to a bloody pulp. It’s a normal afternoon; school sucked, he probably flunked his geometry quiz, and Puck ditched out after football practice in favor of banging some “hot mama.” Finn’s left on his own, which is okay. A few mindless hours of ignoring his homework, and then his mom will come through the front door with a pizza in hand and a smile on her lips. It’s the American dream, or something close enough to it.
The…thing, though, doesn’t fit into that little box. And, if he’s honest, he nearly shits himself when he goes in the blink of an eye from swearing at the bastard who just blew him to smithereens to standing on top of the kitchen counter.
“Goes” is the operative word. He can’t think of a more accurate verb, because he doesn’t remember moving. All he knows is, the controller is still clutched in white-knuckled hands, and his stomach is threatening to remove itself completely from his body.
His knees buckle; the controller drops to the tile floor, and it takes every ounce of strength in his body to keep from plummeting after it.
“What,” he breathes to an empty house, “the hell?”
It’s actually pretty easy to convince himself he’s imagining things, this time. He has been really tired after school lately-running drills in the hot sun saps the strength something fierce-and it’s not like he’s never sleep-walked before. Sleep-walking onto a counter is, okay, not the norm, but stranger things have happened.
Probably.
At any rate, by the time Carole Hudson shoulders her way into the house wielding two large pepperoni pies, a two-liter of Coke, and a Blockbuster-rented copy of Dogma, Finn is feeling normal enough again. And, just to really cap off the improvement status, he’s blown half the opposing squad all to hell. It’s not a bad afternoon.
It doesn’t take him long to forget.
The next time it happens is a little more jarring, mainly because he is on the field. Of all the places to suffer sporadic breaks in reality (the words of the psychology website he will glance at later, worried that he truly is losing his mind at sixteen), football practice is not high the list of ideal locations. Not that he can think of a place that is really well-suited to more-than-mild insanity.
Regular guys aren’t supposed to go bonkers out of nowhere.
He’s eyeing the scraggly mess of players, shirts and skins (no tackling today; Coach Tanaka snaps that, since tackling is by and large the only thing his guys do well, they can only benefit from the punishment of having it stripped away at practice), rolling battered leather between his palms. This isn’t his best domain-he’ll be the first to admit he’s a second-rate quarterback, at best-but it’s fun.
Ken Tanaka is fairly apathetic about the whole football thing, choosing to keep the job strictly for what he calls “lady perks” (Finn doesn’t particularly want to think about what that means), and therefore doesn’t spend much time yelling at Finn for being crappy at timing.
Yelling to him, maybe…
Anyway, it’s a game, and Finn treats it as such. He likes to think that, if he had a dad, theirs would be the sort of classic relationship built on catch in the backyard and rooting for the Eagles on Sunday afternoons. Football is just that kind of rock ‘em, sock ‘em blasty blast.
It helps that he’s on the team with his best friend. Puck’s kind of hard to get a hold of these days, thanks to his blistering libido, but football keeps him anchored. He runs, Finn throws, and sometimes, they line up just well enough not to look like complete idiots in front of the whole school. It’s good. Finn likes it.
He’s just getting ready to pitch one good and long when it happens again: that weird, jolted-nausea feeling in the very pit of his stomach. For a second, he thinks he’s either going to be sick or float away like a fucked-up helium balloon, and then-
Then he is standing on the other side of the field, three feet from where Puck is gaping at him like he’s just seen a ghost.
“I,” the mohawked boy chokes out at last. “I, you…how?”
Finn shakes his head, dizzy and ready to chuck his lunch all over his own cleats. He lets the ball drop to the ground, crushing sweaty palms against his knees and bending at the waist. Puck, looking as though he would rather eat a live canary than do so, reaches hesitantly out to touch his shoulder.
“Dude,” he hisses between his teeth, leaning in to ensure Finn is the only one who will hear. “That is a new-ass trick.”
The whole ground seems to rotate when Finn shakes his head again. His breath comes out in long, low pants. Puck’s hand tightens, fisting around his sweat-drenched shirt.
“Careful,” he warns, uncharacteristically concerned. “Breathe, man.”
“I am,” Finn grinds out. Slowly, the world is coming back into focus, the little black fuzzies receding from the edges of his vision. He can see Puck clearly now, all concerned green eyes and tight-lipped frown. It would be pure comedy to see his best friend go all womanish with anxiety over him, if not for the reason behind it.
Finn Hudson just freaking teleported.
“Your ass is grass if you don’t get it together,” Puck bites off, giving the taller boy’s shoulder a little shake. “Tanaka’s looking at you pretty funky.”
Of course he is, Finn thinks, because his goddamn quarterback just skipped like a stone through space in the blink of an eye. At best, it makes him look like a complete freak; at worst, he’s likely to get booted from the team and the school, lumped in with a fistful of mutant dweebs at the nearest government ranch and, damn, Finn can’t rock a laboratory gown.
But instead of marching over and ripping into him, Tanaka shoves his whistle between his teeth and blows hard, jerking a thumb at Finn until the boy straightens up.
“Hudson!” he snaps, looking for all the world like the angriest fanny-pack-toting porcupine. “Up and at ‘em! Game in three days, no time for this whining crap!”
With that, he swivels on the kicker, leaving Finn blinking dumbly at his back. Puck’s hand connects solidly between his shoulder blades.
“You heard the man,” his friend says ruefully. “No time for mutant bullshit. Hup.”
It is by far the weirdest thing that has ever happened to him, but he doesn’t see any pitchforks or torches, and no one seems to be rushing to expel him. Finn shrugs and lopes dizzily over to take his place in the huddle.
And so it continues. Every so often-once or twice a week, usually-Finn will find himself inexplicably in a new place without having walked to get there. It always leaves him feeling ill beyond measure for a few seconds, and he sometimes gets some pretty wicked stares, but all in all? People tend not to comment. Which never gets any less weird, it’s true, but it at least allows him the freedom to pretend he still fits neatly into the Regular Guy column.
Even if Regular Guys are generally known for taking the bus, rather than accidentally jettisoning themselves to the school in an invisible wormhole or some such shit.
The only person who doesn’t know-at all-is his mother. It’s pretty lucky that she’s never been present for one of his spectacular leaps, but then, she isn’t home as much as other moms. Life is good for them, but only because she’s working two jobs, endlessly scraping and striving to keep them comfortable. It’s silly, but sometimes Finn dreams about selling his Xbox and his drums and maybe some of the furniture, just to keep her around more often.
He hasn’t been entertaining those dreams so much these days, though, because the less time Carole Hudson spends at home, the less chance she’s got of noticing what a freakazoid her only son has transformed into overnight. It’s the first time in sixteen years he appreciates her semi-workaholic nature, which, in turn, kind of makes his head spin.
He tries talking to Puck about it when he can, but Puck isn’t really a deep-conversation kind of guy. His responses mostly travel along the “you’re fucking Superman, so quit whining, you sad fuck” plane of existence. It usually leaves Finn feeling a little annoyed and a lot like punching his best friend. It doesn’t take terribly long for him to give up.
So, yeah, things are pretty normal. Sort of.
And then it starts getting worse. Instead of happening once or twice a week, it starts happening once or twice a day. There’s no predictability to it, no way to tell if he’ll find himself sitting in another period’s math class or standing, fully-clothed and chest-deep, in the pool while the swim team does laps around him. He stops bringing his iPod to school, starts leaving his phone in his locker, carefully tucks his wallet away in his jacket. He spends every day on pins and needles. It’s maddening.
The worst part is, no one seems to notice or give a single shit about it. His teachers continue to smile gently as they walk him through conjugating verbs or balancing electrons; Coach keeps pulling him aside, showering him with so many new plays, Finn doesn’t know how he’ll keep it all straight. It makes no sense; he knows they know. There’s no way to explain away the fact that the biggest kid in school keeps zapping in and out of classrooms at a moment’s notice.
“I don’t get it,” he complains to Puck in the locker room one day. “Why isn’t anyone treating me differently?”
“Do you want to be treated differently?” Puck asks from inside his shirt, reduced to a tuft of mohawk poking out from the collar. Finn shrugs uncomfortably.
“I dunno. It’s just…superheroes have to keep their abilities under wraps for a reason, right? They put the people they love in danger and all that. I just…I guess I expected something more from this.”
“Something like, what?” Puck’s head finally pops free of his shirt, eyebrows arched. “The Vulture’s gonna swoop down and kidnap your mom? The Riddler’s gonna blow my house to kibbles ‘n bits? Dude, this is real life. I don’t jive with that comic book crap.”
“I guess,” Finn mumbles, raking deodorant under his arms. “It just seems weird. I mean, I’ve heard stories about what happens to people with powers. Fucked up shit. Dudes getting lynched, chicks getting raped, and here I am. Like always.”
“You’re the Golden Boy, motherfucker,” Puck comments with a trace of bitterness. “Own it.”
Finn shakes his head. “Whatever. I just don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep this a secret from my mom. I’ve been jumping in my sleep, man. In my sleep. I keep waking up outside, or in the car, or the bathtub. The bathtub.”
“Is this parrot routine part of your special power?” Puck asks, smirking. Finn slugs him in the shoulder, too lightly to count for anything, and runs a hand through his hair.
“She’s gonna find out. And then I dunno what comes after.”
Puck’s expression softens half a hair, eyes darting to the door. “Look,” he says when he’s certain they’re alone. “She’s your mom, okay? And not just any mom-she’s like…the best mom ever.”
“Besides yours,” Finn fills in numbly. Puck grins.
“Damn straight. Anyway, moms are different than dads, y’know? Dads run off, or…whatever.” (Or die, Finn adds silently, grateful that his friend knows better than to go there right now.) “Dads are kind of notorious for sucking, but moms? Moms always love you. No matter what. So stop freaking your shit out, all right?”
It’s not the grandest pep talk he’s ever received, but it’s more serious than anything Puck has said to him in the last three and a half years, so Finn opts to take it and be happy.
He decides a few days later to just come out with it. Tell his mother everything, let her know that her son is…whatever he is. Nobody is looking at him differently, nobody is making a fuss, and Puck is right: this is his mom. She’s the most important person in the world, hands down-more important than the President, and Kobe Bryant, and Steve Perry. She deserves his honesty, now and always, regardless of how scared shitless he is.
Puck, being Puck, only shakes his head when Finn says so out loud, curled with his knees under him on the Puckerman couch as they Mario Kart their way through the afternoon.
“You’re a fucking nut and a half, brother,” is all he says, slamming hard into Finn’s kart and roaring with laughter when the other boy careens off a cliff in consequence. Finn growls.
“It was your idea.”
“My idea,” Puck replies calmly, “was to trust that your ma’s going to love that big dumb dinosaur ass of yours, no matter what kind of tail it winds up sporting. Not exactly the same as walking into the living room and announcing your freakish status. Anyway, what is this coming out shit? You sound like a fucking homo, dude. Got some pamphlets to show her too?”
“You’re a douche,” Finn grumbles, seconds before he teleports out of the house and into the 7-Eleven down the street. Swallowing the bile that crawls into his throat, he punches the nearest wall in frustration.
Despite Puck’s less-than-comforting response, Finn is certain that tonight is the night. All he has to do is walk home, suck in a couple of deep breaths, and just come out with it.
“Come on,” he mutters, feet shuffling against the edge of his own lawn. “Come on, you got this. You got this, you’re Finn Hudson. You’re-“
“Finn fucking Hudson,” a voice booms from behind him, tearing a hole in the sweet silence of the evening. It’s stupid to jump; this is his house, his domain, and even if it wasn’t, he hasn’t met too many people with the necessary size and strength to take him out. Even so, Finn nearly jolts out of his skin at the sound.
He turns to find a handful of men-or, at least, he assumes they’re men. They certainly sound like it, but their faces are concealed behind-Finn snorts-various comic book character masks. The Green Lantern. Batman. The Flash.
It kind of annoys him that they’ve mostly gone with DC; he’s never been impressed by the damn Justice League.
“What do you want?” he asks, less aggravated about their presence than their timing. He’s not so great at holding up his courage in times of absolute stress, and he really, really needs to be brave tonight. These punks? Not helping.
“What do we want?” Captain America asks, sounding pretty damn jovial for a guy in a sadly done-up rubber mask (and, damn, he's never liked that patriotic bastard much either). “Well, gee. I fuckin’ wonder.”
Finn wonders too, but not so much that he’s willing to stand here all night yapping about it. His fists clench at his sides.
“Listen, you clown-“
“Oh! Clown!” Captain America throws back his head and cackles. “You really are the master of insults. Hey, listen-can I tell you a little secret?”
Finn has no interest in hearing it-whatever it may be-but the man is crooking a finger, beckoning him nearer. He rolls his eyes, stuffs his hands into his pockets, and reluctantly stomps over. The man arches his neck, muffled voice soft and vicious.
“Honestly, fuckwad,” he whispers, and Finn can sense a smirk behind the mask. “I have no idea what they see in you.”
“Who?” he demands, or tries to. The fist that finds its way into his gut does a pretty damn good job of swiping the word right out of him. He coughs, wheezes, hears the man above him laugh again.
“You’re just so special, aren’t you, Golden Boy?” the icy voice murmurs. “So fucking special that you can do wondrous things. Things that don’t make a single person in this charming neighborhood bat a fucking eye. Right?”
Finn coughs again, lifting his head to glare brazenly up at the man. “What’s your point?”
“No one gives a shit about the things you can do, Hudson,” the man seethes, continuing as if Finn has not spoken at all. “Don’t you ever wonder why that is?”
Shaking his head, Finn struggles to stand;right on cue, a boot plants itself into his left kidney. He cries out, half-hoping his mother is home to hear it, and half-praying she is far, far away. This is not bound to end at all well.
“Don’t you ever wonder,” the man goes on, stepping in a light circle around the panting boy, “why no one seems to care that you are a worthless, pathetic freak? I mean, really, it can’t be the football thing. You’ve got the most pathetic aim I’ve ever seen. Nothing worth protecting that thick-ass hide over. Am I right?”
Finn’s reasonably certain he is not right, but the boot swings down again onto his back, making it hard to think. He bites clean through his own lip, doing his best not to scream out loud.
“You people,” the man says almost whimsically, “are ridiculous. Thinking you’re so normal. Thinking you can keep on behaving like the rest of us, like it doesn’t matter in the least.”
Another swift kick, this time to the ribs. Finn groans.
“Do you like the look?” the man asks suddenly, halting in front of Finn’s face and striking a pose. The boy spits, his lungs straining for air.
“What?”
“The look,” the man repeats, bending until Finn can see his torso without searching. “Is it cool? Is it rad?”
A strong hand grasps Finn by the hair, jerking until their eyes meet through the holes in the mask. “Do I look,” the man growls, “like a fucking hero?”
“Actually,” a girl pipes up, “you look like kind of an idiot.”
He can’t move his head, the way it’s being gripped, but his eyes work just fine. The girl is pretty and about his age, with dark hair and a determined scowl. Behind her are several others: two girls, three boys, all of whom look more than a little tired and disheveled. Finn blinks.
“Finn Hudson,” one of the boys drawls, his voice weirdly high-pitched against Finn’s ears. “Now might be the expressly perfect time to exercise your personal gift. Unless you find yourself partial to getting the living crap beaten out of you, that is.”
Helplessly, Finn turns his eyes to the girl heading the small pack. “What’s he talking about?”
“Your power, Finn,” the girl says simply. “I would advise tapping into it now.”
“I can’t,” he gasps, gritting his teeth when a few stray hairs rip loose from his scalp. “Fuck, ow.”
“Great,” the black girl standing to the left of-oh wonderful-the boy in the wheelchair grumbles. “White boy’s a mess of useless.”
“Hey!” he snaps defensively. “I am not-will you stop?”
The hand in his hair yanks again. “You’re not really in the best position for making demands, boy.”
“Leave him alone!” the brunette snaps. The man snorts.
“Or what? You’re gonna bite my ankles?”
“Ohh, not the right answer,” the kid in the wheelchair quips. Judging by the utterly venomous expression on the small girl’s face, Finn finds himself agreeing.
“I will give you one chance,” the girl says, her voice low and husky. Something rolls over in Finn’s stomach-though whether it’s arousal or sheer terror, he can’t say. All he knows is, the girl is intolerably daunting when she snarls, “Let him go. Now. Or you will see for yourself what a band of freaks is capable of.”
“Empty fuckin’ threat,” the man sneers, but his hand loosens. Finn jerks away, scrambling to his feet and rushing to stand with the other teenagers.
“Are you absolutely positive about that?” the girl asks, her voice liquid steel. “Because, I have to tell you with abject sincerity, this isn’t a claim I make lightly. I don’t suggest you respond with such glib remarks unless you are one hundred percent certain.”
Finn can tell the man is just as dumbfounded by this young woman’s words as he is. At his side, the high-pitched boy smirks.
“Rachel, darling, I don’t believe taunting qualifies as the ideal tactic.”
“I’m with my man Kurt,” the black girl adds smoothly. “Let’s get to the poundin’ or the leavin’.”
“Leaving, preferably,” the last girl mumbles tremulously. Finn shoots her an uneasy glance.
“Leaving for where?”
“Nowhere,” Captain America snarls. “None of you is going to move until I say so. Understand?”
Finn’s brow creases in the heaviest scowl he has ever worn. For all his size and teenage bluster, he will usually go far beyond himself in effort to avoid confrontation (unless it’s Puck he’s fighting, in which case the guy tends to deserve a few short jabs to the nose), but this? This is just getting to be too damn much. All he wanted was to have a pleasant-if horrifyingly frank-evening with his mother. Instead, he gets a band of faceless cowards kicking him for no legit reason. It’s pathetic, and Finn Hudson? Is done.
The girl called Rachel seems to agree.
“Do you know,” she says softly, stepping closer to the masked men, “what it is I can do?”
“Funny that you think I give a shit,” the leader jeers. Finn’s nerves jangle violently when she releases a beaming, sardonic smile in response.
“I can slip into the minds of others,” she goes on, tone cold and simple. “I can slip into their heads as easily as you might slip between your bedcovers, and I can make them do whatever it is I please. I can make a person stand still…or go for a run…” She pauses, eyebrows kneading together above a solemn brown gaze. “Or brutally murder the men he calls friends.”
She’s nose-to-mask with Captain America now, grinning like a madwoman. “Would you like to see?”
If he weren’t so near to pissing his own pants at the sight, Finn would just about die laughing to see his would-be tormentors knocking each other over in their haste to leave. The brunette’s grin fades as she watches them go, transforming in the next heartbeat from calculating glee to crippling misery. Finn eyes her, curious.
“Thank you,” he says, though his lip is crusted with blood and his body feels bruised worse than after the most jarring of football practices.
Dark eyes turn on him, flashing uncertainly. “You are Finn Hudson?” she says, sounding as though she doubts it very much. The high-pitched boy nods with him.
“That’s him. He’s the one.”
“But you can’t use your power?” the girl presses, hands on her hips. Finn feels a burst of defensiveness.
“I can, I just…don’t…know how to control it.” It’s mortifying to admit aloud, especially in front of a group of kids who look like they could kick his ass based on street cred alone. Finn shuffles one sneaker against the sidewalk.
The brunette rolls her eyes, tossing her head. “Fine,” she says grudgingly. “If you say so, Kurt, I believe you. We will simply have to work with him extensively until he is able to fully manage himself.”
“What, like tutors?” Finn asks nervously. “I don’t know if I really need something like that-“
“Oh, I hate this part,” Rachel grumbles, shaking her head. “Anyone else want to take it this time?”
Finn lifts an eyebrow. “You all have powers too, don’t you?”
They nod. He cocks his head.
“And you’re about to tell me it isn’t safe anymore, staying here, right? That I’m needed for a higher purpose? That those creeps will come back and, like, burn my house down if I stick around?”
The wheelchair kid lifts an amused eyebrow. “He’s smarter than he looks.”
“Not by much, I’d wager,” the one named Kurt jokes, blue eyes shining. Finn feels decidedly unsettled by the way the other boy is looking at him, but he figures now really isn’t the time to stress about it.
“So are you gonna make it easy, or do we have to use force?” the black girl asks, cracking her knuckles and grinning. Rachel fires a withering look her way.
“Mercedes, we have been over this. Force is not an option while gathering new members.”
“Isn’t that how crazy broads like you make friends?” Mercedes taunts. Kurt slides her a smooth high five. Rachel huffs, rounding back on Finn.
“I am entirely too exhausted for this. Are you coming or not?”
He glances towards the darkened driveway, heart constricting in his chest. Does he want to go? Absolutely not. Regular Guys don’t go pelting off into the shadows, leaving their loving moms behind to weep and worry over their whereabouts. Regular Guys don’t just bail. Bailing is the mark of a true jackass, in Finn’s opinion.
But it’s also true that Regular Guys don’t jump space with the slightest sneeze. Regular Guys don’t have jerks in masks beating them senseless outside their own homes.
As much as it pains him to admit it, Finn Hudson isn’t exactly a Regular Guy anymore. He’s just…Finn. Whatever that may mean.
“Give me a minute,” he says at last.
If he’s going to leave his world behind, he’s damn well going to give an explanation. He’s not the best with words, and truth be told, letter-writing will never be his strong suit, but he guesses it’s better than nothing at all.
It takes him five minutes to find a pen.
Pairing: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce, minor Artie Abrams/Tina Cohen-Chang
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: AU
Summary: “Sometimes, people are born a little different.”
The first time it happens, it scares the living crap out of him.
Finn Hudson, sixteen years old, prides himself on being a pretty regular guy. That’s his thing, the bag he’s happiest carrying: Regular Guy. He likes sleeping, eating, video games, porn. He plays football and scrapes by in school, and although he’s not the greatest at either, they make getting up worth doing. He’s happy living in Philly with his mom-happy with the dynamic between them of mutual protection: she feeds him, keeps him clothed in flannel shirts and monster-sized jeans, and he keeps her safe from men who want nothing to do with love and even less to do with Finn himself. It’s the fairest trade he can think of.
Sometimes, when no one’s around, he sings. He likes that best of all-it’s easy, and makes his heart swell, and maybe it’s not the coolest hobby to have, but it’s not like he cares about showing it off to other people or whatever. He just likes to do it. Belting some quality Styx or Survivor tunes is just…the best.
So, yeah, he’s Finn Hudson: Regular Guy Extraordinaire (his mom likes to tack that last word onto the things he does, her eyes gleaming with pride, and it’s not something he would normally toss around in daily conversation, but whatever). He’s happy. He’s got the best mom a guy could ask for, the best friend a guy could deal with (Puck’s not, like, a nice kid, but he’s a good dude, and that’s all Finn cares about). He’s got a rockin’ drum set and a comfortable bed, not to mention a freezer that boasts an endless supply of Bagel Bites. He’s on top of the damn world.
The first time it happens, he gets a glimpse of all of that going away.
He’s sitting on the couch, Xbox controller gripped in both hands, twisting his shoulders this way and that as he tries to beat an opponent to a bloody pulp. It’s a normal afternoon; school sucked, he probably flunked his geometry quiz, and Puck ditched out after football practice in favor of banging some “hot mama.” Finn’s left on his own, which is okay. A few mindless hours of ignoring his homework, and then his mom will come through the front door with a pizza in hand and a smile on her lips. It’s the American dream, or something close enough to it.
The…thing, though, doesn’t fit into that little box. And, if he’s honest, he nearly shits himself when he goes in the blink of an eye from swearing at the bastard who just blew him to smithereens to standing on top of the kitchen counter.
“Goes” is the operative word. He can’t think of a more accurate verb, because he doesn’t remember moving. All he knows is, the controller is still clutched in white-knuckled hands, and his stomach is threatening to remove itself completely from his body.
His knees buckle; the controller drops to the tile floor, and it takes every ounce of strength in his body to keep from plummeting after it.
“What,” he breathes to an empty house, “the hell?”
It’s actually pretty easy to convince himself he’s imagining things, this time. He has been really tired after school lately-running drills in the hot sun saps the strength something fierce-and it’s not like he’s never sleep-walked before. Sleep-walking onto a counter is, okay, not the norm, but stranger things have happened.
Probably.
At any rate, by the time Carole Hudson shoulders her way into the house wielding two large pepperoni pies, a two-liter of Coke, and a Blockbuster-rented copy of Dogma, Finn is feeling normal enough again. And, just to really cap off the improvement status, he’s blown half the opposing squad all to hell. It’s not a bad afternoon.
It doesn’t take him long to forget.
The next time it happens is a little more jarring, mainly because he is on the field. Of all the places to suffer sporadic breaks in reality (the words of the psychology website he will glance at later, worried that he truly is losing his mind at sixteen), football practice is not high the list of ideal locations. Not that he can think of a place that is really well-suited to more-than-mild insanity.
Regular guys aren’t supposed to go bonkers out of nowhere.
He’s eyeing the scraggly mess of players, shirts and skins (no tackling today; Coach Tanaka snaps that, since tackling is by and large the only thing his guys do well, they can only benefit from the punishment of having it stripped away at practice), rolling battered leather between his palms. This isn’t his best domain-he’ll be the first to admit he’s a second-rate quarterback, at best-but it’s fun.
Ken Tanaka is fairly apathetic about the whole football thing, choosing to keep the job strictly for what he calls “lady perks” (Finn doesn’t particularly want to think about what that means), and therefore doesn’t spend much time yelling at Finn for being crappy at timing.
Yelling to him, maybe…
Anyway, it’s a game, and Finn treats it as such. He likes to think that, if he had a dad, theirs would be the sort of classic relationship built on catch in the backyard and rooting for the Eagles on Sunday afternoons. Football is just that kind of rock ‘em, sock ‘em blasty blast.
It helps that he’s on the team with his best friend. Puck’s kind of hard to get a hold of these days, thanks to his blistering libido, but football keeps him anchored. He runs, Finn throws, and sometimes, they line up just well enough not to look like complete idiots in front of the whole school. It’s good. Finn likes it.
He’s just getting ready to pitch one good and long when it happens again: that weird, jolted-nausea feeling in the very pit of his stomach. For a second, he thinks he’s either going to be sick or float away like a fucked-up helium balloon, and then-
Then he is standing on the other side of the field, three feet from where Puck is gaping at him like he’s just seen a ghost.
“I,” the mohawked boy chokes out at last. “I, you…how?”
Finn shakes his head, dizzy and ready to chuck his lunch all over his own cleats. He lets the ball drop to the ground, crushing sweaty palms against his knees and bending at the waist. Puck, looking as though he would rather eat a live canary than do so, reaches hesitantly out to touch his shoulder.
“Dude,” he hisses between his teeth, leaning in to ensure Finn is the only one who will hear. “That is a new-ass trick.”
The whole ground seems to rotate when Finn shakes his head again. His breath comes out in long, low pants. Puck’s hand tightens, fisting around his sweat-drenched shirt.
“Careful,” he warns, uncharacteristically concerned. “Breathe, man.”
“I am,” Finn grinds out. Slowly, the world is coming back into focus, the little black fuzzies receding from the edges of his vision. He can see Puck clearly now, all concerned green eyes and tight-lipped frown. It would be pure comedy to see his best friend go all womanish with anxiety over him, if not for the reason behind it.
Finn Hudson just freaking teleported.
“Your ass is grass if you don’t get it together,” Puck bites off, giving the taller boy’s shoulder a little shake. “Tanaka’s looking at you pretty funky.”
Of course he is, Finn thinks, because his goddamn quarterback just skipped like a stone through space in the blink of an eye. At best, it makes him look like a complete freak; at worst, he’s likely to get booted from the team and the school, lumped in with a fistful of mutant dweebs at the nearest government ranch and, damn, Finn can’t rock a laboratory gown.
But instead of marching over and ripping into him, Tanaka shoves his whistle between his teeth and blows hard, jerking a thumb at Finn until the boy straightens up.
“Hudson!” he snaps, looking for all the world like the angriest fanny-pack-toting porcupine. “Up and at ‘em! Game in three days, no time for this whining crap!”
With that, he swivels on the kicker, leaving Finn blinking dumbly at his back. Puck’s hand connects solidly between his shoulder blades.
“You heard the man,” his friend says ruefully. “No time for mutant bullshit. Hup.”
It is by far the weirdest thing that has ever happened to him, but he doesn’t see any pitchforks or torches, and no one seems to be rushing to expel him. Finn shrugs and lopes dizzily over to take his place in the huddle.
And so it continues. Every so often-once or twice a week, usually-Finn will find himself inexplicably in a new place without having walked to get there. It always leaves him feeling ill beyond measure for a few seconds, and he sometimes gets some pretty wicked stares, but all in all? People tend not to comment. Which never gets any less weird, it’s true, but it at least allows him the freedom to pretend he still fits neatly into the Regular Guy column.
Even if Regular Guys are generally known for taking the bus, rather than accidentally jettisoning themselves to the school in an invisible wormhole or some such shit.
The only person who doesn’t know-at all-is his mother. It’s pretty lucky that she’s never been present for one of his spectacular leaps, but then, she isn’t home as much as other moms. Life is good for them, but only because she’s working two jobs, endlessly scraping and striving to keep them comfortable. It’s silly, but sometimes Finn dreams about selling his Xbox and his drums and maybe some of the furniture, just to keep her around more often.
He hasn’t been entertaining those dreams so much these days, though, because the less time Carole Hudson spends at home, the less chance she’s got of noticing what a freakazoid her only son has transformed into overnight. It’s the first time in sixteen years he appreciates her semi-workaholic nature, which, in turn, kind of makes his head spin.
He tries talking to Puck about it when he can, but Puck isn’t really a deep-conversation kind of guy. His responses mostly travel along the “you’re fucking Superman, so quit whining, you sad fuck” plane of existence. It usually leaves Finn feeling a little annoyed and a lot like punching his best friend. It doesn’t take terribly long for him to give up.
So, yeah, things are pretty normal. Sort of.
And then it starts getting worse. Instead of happening once or twice a week, it starts happening once or twice a day. There’s no predictability to it, no way to tell if he’ll find himself sitting in another period’s math class or standing, fully-clothed and chest-deep, in the pool while the swim team does laps around him. He stops bringing his iPod to school, starts leaving his phone in his locker, carefully tucks his wallet away in his jacket. He spends every day on pins and needles. It’s maddening.
The worst part is, no one seems to notice or give a single shit about it. His teachers continue to smile gently as they walk him through conjugating verbs or balancing electrons; Coach keeps pulling him aside, showering him with so many new plays, Finn doesn’t know how he’ll keep it all straight. It makes no sense; he knows they know. There’s no way to explain away the fact that the biggest kid in school keeps zapping in and out of classrooms at a moment’s notice.
“I don’t get it,” he complains to Puck in the locker room one day. “Why isn’t anyone treating me differently?”
“Do you want to be treated differently?” Puck asks from inside his shirt, reduced to a tuft of mohawk poking out from the collar. Finn shrugs uncomfortably.
“I dunno. It’s just…superheroes have to keep their abilities under wraps for a reason, right? They put the people they love in danger and all that. I just…I guess I expected something more from this.”
“Something like, what?” Puck’s head finally pops free of his shirt, eyebrows arched. “The Vulture’s gonna swoop down and kidnap your mom? The Riddler’s gonna blow my house to kibbles ‘n bits? Dude, this is real life. I don’t jive with that comic book crap.”
“I guess,” Finn mumbles, raking deodorant under his arms. “It just seems weird. I mean, I’ve heard stories about what happens to people with powers. Fucked up shit. Dudes getting lynched, chicks getting raped, and here I am. Like always.”
“You’re the Golden Boy, motherfucker,” Puck comments with a trace of bitterness. “Own it.”
Finn shakes his head. “Whatever. I just don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep this a secret from my mom. I’ve been jumping in my sleep, man. In my sleep. I keep waking up outside, or in the car, or the bathtub. The bathtub.”
“Is this parrot routine part of your special power?” Puck asks, smirking. Finn slugs him in the shoulder, too lightly to count for anything, and runs a hand through his hair.
“She’s gonna find out. And then I dunno what comes after.”
Puck’s expression softens half a hair, eyes darting to the door. “Look,” he says when he’s certain they’re alone. “She’s your mom, okay? And not just any mom-she’s like…the best mom ever.”
“Besides yours,” Finn fills in numbly. Puck grins.
“Damn straight. Anyway, moms are different than dads, y’know? Dads run off, or…whatever.” (Or die, Finn adds silently, grateful that his friend knows better than to go there right now.) “Dads are kind of notorious for sucking, but moms? Moms always love you. No matter what. So stop freaking your shit out, all right?”
It’s not the grandest pep talk he’s ever received, but it’s more serious than anything Puck has said to him in the last three and a half years, so Finn opts to take it and be happy.
He decides a few days later to just come out with it. Tell his mother everything, let her know that her son is…whatever he is. Nobody is looking at him differently, nobody is making a fuss, and Puck is right: this is his mom. She’s the most important person in the world, hands down-more important than the President, and Kobe Bryant, and Steve Perry. She deserves his honesty, now and always, regardless of how scared shitless he is.
Puck, being Puck, only shakes his head when Finn says so out loud, curled with his knees under him on the Puckerman couch as they Mario Kart their way through the afternoon.
“You’re a fucking nut and a half, brother,” is all he says, slamming hard into Finn’s kart and roaring with laughter when the other boy careens off a cliff in consequence. Finn growls.
“It was your idea.”
“My idea,” Puck replies calmly, “was to trust that your ma’s going to love that big dumb dinosaur ass of yours, no matter what kind of tail it winds up sporting. Not exactly the same as walking into the living room and announcing your freakish status. Anyway, what is this coming out shit? You sound like a fucking homo, dude. Got some pamphlets to show her too?”
“You’re a douche,” Finn grumbles, seconds before he teleports out of the house and into the 7-Eleven down the street. Swallowing the bile that crawls into his throat, he punches the nearest wall in frustration.
Despite Puck’s less-than-comforting response, Finn is certain that tonight is the night. All he has to do is walk home, suck in a couple of deep breaths, and just come out with it.
“Come on,” he mutters, feet shuffling against the edge of his own lawn. “Come on, you got this. You got this, you’re Finn Hudson. You’re-“
“Finn fucking Hudson,” a voice booms from behind him, tearing a hole in the sweet silence of the evening. It’s stupid to jump; this is his house, his domain, and even if it wasn’t, he hasn’t met too many people with the necessary size and strength to take him out. Even so, Finn nearly jolts out of his skin at the sound.
He turns to find a handful of men-or, at least, he assumes they’re men. They certainly sound like it, but their faces are concealed behind-Finn snorts-various comic book character masks. The Green Lantern. Batman. The Flash.
It kind of annoys him that they’ve mostly gone with DC; he’s never been impressed by the damn Justice League.
“What do you want?” he asks, less aggravated about their presence than their timing. He’s not so great at holding up his courage in times of absolute stress, and he really, really needs to be brave tonight. These punks? Not helping.
“What do we want?” Captain America asks, sounding pretty damn jovial for a guy in a sadly done-up rubber mask (and, damn, he's never liked that patriotic bastard much either). “Well, gee. I fuckin’ wonder.”
Finn wonders too, but not so much that he’s willing to stand here all night yapping about it. His fists clench at his sides.
“Listen, you clown-“
“Oh! Clown!” Captain America throws back his head and cackles. “You really are the master of insults. Hey, listen-can I tell you a little secret?”
Finn has no interest in hearing it-whatever it may be-but the man is crooking a finger, beckoning him nearer. He rolls his eyes, stuffs his hands into his pockets, and reluctantly stomps over. The man arches his neck, muffled voice soft and vicious.
“Honestly, fuckwad,” he whispers, and Finn can sense a smirk behind the mask. “I have no idea what they see in you.”
“Who?” he demands, or tries to. The fist that finds its way into his gut does a pretty damn good job of swiping the word right out of him. He coughs, wheezes, hears the man above him laugh again.
“You’re just so special, aren’t you, Golden Boy?” the icy voice murmurs. “So fucking special that you can do wondrous things. Things that don’t make a single person in this charming neighborhood bat a fucking eye. Right?”
Finn coughs again, lifting his head to glare brazenly up at the man. “What’s your point?”
“No one gives a shit about the things you can do, Hudson,” the man seethes, continuing as if Finn has not spoken at all. “Don’t you ever wonder why that is?”
Shaking his head, Finn struggles to stand;right on cue, a boot plants itself into his left kidney. He cries out, half-hoping his mother is home to hear it, and half-praying she is far, far away. This is not bound to end at all well.
“Don’t you ever wonder,” the man goes on, stepping in a light circle around the panting boy, “why no one seems to care that you are a worthless, pathetic freak? I mean, really, it can’t be the football thing. You’ve got the most pathetic aim I’ve ever seen. Nothing worth protecting that thick-ass hide over. Am I right?”
Finn’s reasonably certain he is not right, but the boot swings down again onto his back, making it hard to think. He bites clean through his own lip, doing his best not to scream out loud.
“You people,” the man says almost whimsically, “are ridiculous. Thinking you’re so normal. Thinking you can keep on behaving like the rest of us, like it doesn’t matter in the least.”
Another swift kick, this time to the ribs. Finn groans.
“Do you like the look?” the man asks suddenly, halting in front of Finn’s face and striking a pose. The boy spits, his lungs straining for air.
“What?”
“The look,” the man repeats, bending until Finn can see his torso without searching. “Is it cool? Is it rad?”
A strong hand grasps Finn by the hair, jerking until their eyes meet through the holes in the mask. “Do I look,” the man growls, “like a fucking hero?”
“Actually,” a girl pipes up, “you look like kind of an idiot.”
He can’t move his head, the way it’s being gripped, but his eyes work just fine. The girl is pretty and about his age, with dark hair and a determined scowl. Behind her are several others: two girls, three boys, all of whom look more than a little tired and disheveled. Finn blinks.
“Finn Hudson,” one of the boys drawls, his voice weirdly high-pitched against Finn’s ears. “Now might be the expressly perfect time to exercise your personal gift. Unless you find yourself partial to getting the living crap beaten out of you, that is.”
Helplessly, Finn turns his eyes to the girl heading the small pack. “What’s he talking about?”
“Your power, Finn,” the girl says simply. “I would advise tapping into it now.”
“I can’t,” he gasps, gritting his teeth when a few stray hairs rip loose from his scalp. “Fuck, ow.”
“Great,” the black girl standing to the left of-oh wonderful-the boy in the wheelchair grumbles. “White boy’s a mess of useless.”
“Hey!” he snaps defensively. “I am not-will you stop?”
The hand in his hair yanks again. “You’re not really in the best position for making demands, boy.”
“Leave him alone!” the brunette snaps. The man snorts.
“Or what? You’re gonna bite my ankles?”
“Ohh, not the right answer,” the kid in the wheelchair quips. Judging by the utterly venomous expression on the small girl’s face, Finn finds himself agreeing.
“I will give you one chance,” the girl says, her voice low and husky. Something rolls over in Finn’s stomach-though whether it’s arousal or sheer terror, he can’t say. All he knows is, the girl is intolerably daunting when she snarls, “Let him go. Now. Or you will see for yourself what a band of freaks is capable of.”
“Empty fuckin’ threat,” the man sneers, but his hand loosens. Finn jerks away, scrambling to his feet and rushing to stand with the other teenagers.
“Are you absolutely positive about that?” the girl asks, her voice liquid steel. “Because, I have to tell you with abject sincerity, this isn’t a claim I make lightly. I don’t suggest you respond with such glib remarks unless you are one hundred percent certain.”
Finn can tell the man is just as dumbfounded by this young woman’s words as he is. At his side, the high-pitched boy smirks.
“Rachel, darling, I don’t believe taunting qualifies as the ideal tactic.”
“I’m with my man Kurt,” the black girl adds smoothly. “Let’s get to the poundin’ or the leavin’.”
“Leaving, preferably,” the last girl mumbles tremulously. Finn shoots her an uneasy glance.
“Leaving for where?”
“Nowhere,” Captain America snarls. “None of you is going to move until I say so. Understand?”
Finn’s brow creases in the heaviest scowl he has ever worn. For all his size and teenage bluster, he will usually go far beyond himself in effort to avoid confrontation (unless it’s Puck he’s fighting, in which case the guy tends to deserve a few short jabs to the nose), but this? This is just getting to be too damn much. All he wanted was to have a pleasant-if horrifyingly frank-evening with his mother. Instead, he gets a band of faceless cowards kicking him for no legit reason. It’s pathetic, and Finn Hudson? Is done.
The girl called Rachel seems to agree.
“Do you know,” she says softly, stepping closer to the masked men, “what it is I can do?”
“Funny that you think I give a shit,” the leader jeers. Finn’s nerves jangle violently when she releases a beaming, sardonic smile in response.
“I can slip into the minds of others,” she goes on, tone cold and simple. “I can slip into their heads as easily as you might slip between your bedcovers, and I can make them do whatever it is I please. I can make a person stand still…or go for a run…” She pauses, eyebrows kneading together above a solemn brown gaze. “Or brutally murder the men he calls friends.”
She’s nose-to-mask with Captain America now, grinning like a madwoman. “Would you like to see?”
If he weren’t so near to pissing his own pants at the sight, Finn would just about die laughing to see his would-be tormentors knocking each other over in their haste to leave. The brunette’s grin fades as she watches them go, transforming in the next heartbeat from calculating glee to crippling misery. Finn eyes her, curious.
“Thank you,” he says, though his lip is crusted with blood and his body feels bruised worse than after the most jarring of football practices.
Dark eyes turn on him, flashing uncertainly. “You are Finn Hudson?” she says, sounding as though she doubts it very much. The high-pitched boy nods with him.
“That’s him. He’s the one.”
“But you can’t use your power?” the girl presses, hands on her hips. Finn feels a burst of defensiveness.
“I can, I just…don’t…know how to control it.” It’s mortifying to admit aloud, especially in front of a group of kids who look like they could kick his ass based on street cred alone. Finn shuffles one sneaker against the sidewalk.
The brunette rolls her eyes, tossing her head. “Fine,” she says grudgingly. “If you say so, Kurt, I believe you. We will simply have to work with him extensively until he is able to fully manage himself.”
“What, like tutors?” Finn asks nervously. “I don’t know if I really need something like that-“
“Oh, I hate this part,” Rachel grumbles, shaking her head. “Anyone else want to take it this time?”
Finn lifts an eyebrow. “You all have powers too, don’t you?”
They nod. He cocks his head.
“And you’re about to tell me it isn’t safe anymore, staying here, right? That I’m needed for a higher purpose? That those creeps will come back and, like, burn my house down if I stick around?”
The wheelchair kid lifts an amused eyebrow. “He’s smarter than he looks.”
“Not by much, I’d wager,” the one named Kurt jokes, blue eyes shining. Finn feels decidedly unsettled by the way the other boy is looking at him, but he figures now really isn’t the time to stress about it.
“So are you gonna make it easy, or do we have to use force?” the black girl asks, cracking her knuckles and grinning. Rachel fires a withering look her way.
“Mercedes, we have been over this. Force is not an option while gathering new members.”
“Isn’t that how crazy broads like you make friends?” Mercedes taunts. Kurt slides her a smooth high five. Rachel huffs, rounding back on Finn.
“I am entirely too exhausted for this. Are you coming or not?”
He glances towards the darkened driveway, heart constricting in his chest. Does he want to go? Absolutely not. Regular Guys don’t go pelting off into the shadows, leaving their loving moms behind to weep and worry over their whereabouts. Regular Guys don’t just bail. Bailing is the mark of a true jackass, in Finn’s opinion.
But it’s also true that Regular Guys don’t jump space with the slightest sneeze. Regular Guys don’t have jerks in masks beating them senseless outside their own homes.
As much as it pains him to admit it, Finn Hudson isn’t exactly a Regular Guy anymore. He’s just…Finn. Whatever that may mean.
“Give me a minute,” he says at last.
If he’s going to leave his world behind, he’s damn well going to give an explanation. He’s not the best with words, and truth be told, letter-writing will never be his strong suit, but he guesses it’s better than nothing at all.
It takes him five minutes to find a pen.