Fic. Like Grown Ups
Title: Like Grown Ups
Author: alicebluegown16
Rating: R
Characters/Pairing: Will/Finn, mentions of past Will/Terri, Carole Hudson (Hummel)
Summary: In which Finn is the most mature one in the relationship. Be afraid.
Finn has no desire to marry Will anytime soon. Not now, at least. Maybe someday when he’s like twenty-five. For one thing, his mom would kill him. And they’ve only been dating a short time (four months, two weeks, three days.)
Honestly, considering this is his first really serious relationship, Finn thinks he’s doing a pretty good job keeping things in proper perspective.
Like, he knows that Will sometimes has periodic ‘Oh noes! I’m stealing your childhood’ freak outs, so he makes sure that he has the Full College Experience. Minus the drunken hookups, obviously. He participates in class (surprise, surprise, not as much of a drag as high school. Learning’s a lot more fun when you can pick the time and subject matter.) He has friends his own age. He’s joining organizations (so far: an all male acapella group, an ultimate Frisbee league, the Gay/Straight Alliance, and the Spanish Club…and yes, the last one is totally for sentimental reasons.)
All and all he thinks he’s pretty well rounded. And if he sometimes feels like he’s just living weekend to weekend when he gets to see Will again, well there’s no need to tell the other man that.
He’s got a good thing going right now-first on Will’s speed dial, a key to Will’s place, a toothbrush in the bathroom, some of his clothes in the drawer, his favorite brand of cereal in the pantry. If he ends up staying home for the summer and knocking some of his mandatory classes out of the way at the community college, he’ll even be able to see Will every day. (Or maybe he’ll take Puck up on that plan of road tripping to as many Waffle Houses as they can hit in two months. He hasn’t made up his mind yet.)
Of course, this pat yourself on the back, you’re totally not pathetically stupid-crazy in love theory all goes to shit when he spots Will’s ex-wife coming out of Will’s house, Will hugging the woman (and fuck if it doesn’t look like the most natural thing in the world for both of them.) In fact, Finn’s stomach drops to his toes and he feels roughly like someone just ran over his childhood pet and then lit the remains on fire for shits and giggles.
When his mom answers the door (because screw being an adult, right now he needs his mommy) she greets him with “Oh, you must be the neighbor boy my husband hired to mow the lawn. You look a lot like my long lost son, Finn.”
Okay, message received. Maybe some of his Full College Experience should have included more trips home.
He doesn’t tell his mom about the Terri-sighting. She’s been totally awesome about the whole ‘Surprise! Bisexual!’ revelation, but kind of less so about the dating his former teacher aspect (although he knows it’s more the age difference than the gender similarity.) and he is not going to give any reason for his mom to make good on her threats of “He breaks your heart; I have Burt cut the brakes to his car.” You know, at least until he’s got all the facts.
But he lets her hover and fuss and make him macaroni and cheese and finally he can’t help but ask “Was it ever weird for you and Burt in the beginning? Being each other’s second marriage? Did you ever feel like…like that was the real deal and whatever you did, it’d just be playing house?”
And his mom is awesome. He totally won the awesome mom sweepstakes because she doesn’t say I told you so or anything, she just takes his hand and asks if he and Will had a fight.
“No-I-it’s just, okay, I know that it’s not the same with Will because his wife isn’t dead and she’s you know-“ Finn makes a vague motion with his hands and his mom immediately supplies, “Cuckoo for cocoa puffs?”
“Umm, yeah. But she was his wife. There’s-there’s history there. There are photo albums he thinks I don’t know about in the back of the closet, and stupid inside jokes, and memories, which I know can’t be all bad ones, otherwise why keep the albums? Even the whole ex-wife part-that-there’s documentation, paperwork in some courthouse…and I’ve got…I’ve got a fucking toothbrush and some clothes.”
All things that could easily be gotten rid of. Clothes in a box, tossing out the toothbrush, and he’d be gone from Will’s life, and maybe, a small voice whispers in the back of his mind, maybe this is why Will is so adamant about keeping all the nice neat little boxes, limiting the potential fall out, just in case.
Sharp pain behind his eyes and he feels momentarily sick and dizzy, like he’s two seconds away from barfing up mac and cheese all over his sneakers.
But he’s not done, there’s more, and he lays it all out on his mom’s kitchen table.
“And she wasn’t always nuts. He loved her. He loved her and he married her. At some time he thought he was going to be with her forever and now he knows things don’t always work like that. He’ll never one hundred percent believe in that again. For better or worse Her Will isn’t the same as My Will. And I love him, Mom, but I can’t fix that. And that is so fucking unfair and it really fucking sucks sometimes.”
Choking rattling sob and his mother handing him a napkin to wipe his nose before he can use his sleeve and God, being a grown up is fucking no fun sometimes.
Of course, by this point his mom’s kind of tearing up as well, and she’s giving him a combination of her ‘My baby’s in pain’ face and her ‘I wish your father could see the man you’re becoming’ face both of which are like his fucking Kryptonite, so he pulls her into a bear hug and tells her he loves her and doesn’t even roll his eyes when she sniffles and calls him her sweet baby boy and her Huckleberry and okay maybe he makes a noise of protest at that one because they agreed that particular nickname wasn’t allowed to be spoken anymore, but he immediately shuts up when she hits him on the shoulder and scolds him for ruining the moment.
Talk to him, his mom tells him. If you love him, talk to him, and oh Finn, sweetheart, I’m so sorry, baby, if I ever made it seem like I doubted how serious you two were.
She also tells him that he has to bring Will by for dinner soon and that if she doesn’t hear from him more often, she’s going to put his face on a milk carton, but yeah, talking to Will. That’s the gist of it.
And yes, part of him wants to repress and avoid like a good male, but fuck that noise he’s spent the last four months, two weeks, and three days not talking about certain things (as a matter of fact it does bother him that Will has never met any of his awesome age appropriate friends) and having fights about things that really weren’t about them.
So when Will opens the door (wearing his Buckeyes t-shirt with the rip at the collar, flash of skin that makes his hands itch and he’s so tempted to skip the mature adult stuff and simply get naked) Finn just cuts to the chase and blurts out “I saw Terri here.”
Will goes white and then sort of ashy grey and he’s swearing nothing happened and Finn’s saying “I know, I know” and the best thing is he really does, he loves Will, he trusts Will, and these words get him pulled into his second ribs slightly cracking, mutual tearing up hug in less than two hours.
And then there’s talking (and also kind of maybe a little yelling.)
Because it turns out Will invited Terri over.
So that they could have closure Will explains, and while Finn was of the belief that divorce papers were plenty closure enough, apparently there’s a special kind of closure known as ‘informing your ex-wife that you now have a hot nineteen year old boyfriend.’ To Finn this sounds suspiciously like gloating, but Will assures him it’s far more emotionally healthy than that because once they got past Terri congratulating him on embracing the cliché of being a gay singing, dancing, musical theatre geek who chases after pretty boys, they actually talked.
Civilly.
Like grown ups.
“I’m not saying she isn’t a little insane, but I stayed with her way longer than I should have and if I’m honest, married her for all the wrong reasons in the first place and I needed…I needed to apologize for that. She even said she hopes I’m happy and you know, I’m fairly certain she meant it.”
Finn’s fairly certain that this first Serious Relationship Conversation is going better than he could ever hope for, and then Will fucking blows all of his expectations out of the water by apologizing to him.
“I’ve been unfair to you. You were always willing to put yourself out there and you’ve been more patient with me than I deserve when I wouldn’t return the favor. I---I thought I knew exactly what I wanted at eighteen and that did not work out…in an absolutely spectacular fashion. So, of course I assumed there was no way you could possibly know what you wanted at this age either. As if this just being some phase you were going through would make it so much easier when it inevitably ended. Clearly I was all wrong about which one of us was the more mature person.”
And maybe he wants to say something along the lines of about fucking finally, goddamn, but he settles for the mature response of “Good, you finally clued in that I am way smarter than you. But, since you’re kinda slow I’ll use small words this time so you understand. I. Am. All. In. I am Supportive Awesome Boyfriend Person. I’m not interested in anyone else, not even that skanky girl from down the hall who always comes by my dorm room in short-shorts and a sports bra because it’s laundry day and can she borrow some detergent?”
Will laughs and kisses him and pretty soon they’re making out hard core on the couch
“Like a couple of damn teenagers.”
“Shut the fuck up and relive your youth, old man.”
Rustle of fabric and breathy moans as Finn sucks at his collarbone. It’s that fucking shirt, man. Will in his clothes is so totally his other, sexier Kryptonite.
“Will.”
“Mmmm.”
Will moving against him, warm welcome weight, canting his hips, slow friction, low steady thrum of heat in Finn’s belly.
“Will, I want you to meet my friends.”
Finn kisses his jaw, bites at his neck.
“Two weeks from now, I’ve got an acapella performance. Come down for the weekend.”
He reaches down and cups Will’s erection through his jeans, runs a nail along his inseam and chuckles when he arches against his hand with a low whine, head thrown back and eyes closed.
“They think I’m making you up, Will. It’s kind of embarrassing. I want you to meet them, want to walk across campus holding your hand.”
Right now it’s definitely not Will’s hand he’s holding, Will’s cock bumping against his wrist and leaving a slick strip of moisture behind.
“We’ll sexile my roommate and fuck in my itty bitty dorm bed. I’m not sure about the logistics, since I barely fit in it, but we’ll work something out. When skanky Detergent Girl shows up, you can answer the door naked.”
Finn vaguely notes a hickey already forming on Will’s neck, high enough that no shirt collar can possibly cover it up.
Good.
“What do you say?”
Slick, obscene slide, snap of his wrist and Will sort of arches into an almost backbend, short gasps and ah and oh and yes and Finn’s name and love and it’s playing dirty but hell if he’s not going to hold Will to it.
Besides, if he’s going to work at breaking down some of those nice neat relationship boxes, isn’t it better that he started with this one instead of dinner with his mom?
And yeah, he’s still not in any hurry to run out and marry Will, but maybe they’ll like, get a dog or something.
Maybe he’ll live at Will’s this summer while he’s taking classes.
Or maybe they’ll take a road trip instead.
He hasn’t made up his mind.