Fic: Means to My end

[tawg]

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.

Comments

[brad4815]

Oh, the angst! (And this definitely was not a nice fic for me to read after seeing and crying my eyes out at "The Body" episode of Buffy today.)

“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.

Gah, this just sent shivers down my spine, body's aching all the time~.

A couple grammatical/spelling errors here and there, but other than that I really enjoyed it! Great job!

And loved the April cameo!

[tawg]

Feel free to point out errors to me! I went over this so many times that it started blurring together...

For a long while I had no idea how to end it - things needed to change between Will and Finn, but neither of them could be the agent of change alone, and then I had the idea of putting April in. She was the only character that I could see who would understand the nuances of their bad relationship and act solely in Will's interest. Also, I love April.

[alicebluegown16]

This hurt to read.

You totally nailed the ugly, selfish, self-destructive, wallowing grief that can make a person so unlikable. And you feel so guilty for being frustrated and secretly wishing they'd snap out of it, so you give just a little more leeway, just a little more rope that they can hang themselves with.

Will reflecting that eventually everyone was going to get tired of holding Finn up and move on---so fucking true and painful and awful.

And just the way the more he tried to fix Finn, the more it kept tearing him up and he couldn't walk away and he couldn't tell anyone about, and everyone kept expecting him to be the strong one...

Oh, and Burt calling both Finn and Kurt 'my boys.'

Damn you, stab the knife a little deeper why don't ya.

[alicebluegown16]

Also, I kind of feel like this fic is my karmic punishment for really, really, really wanting some Will/Finn daddy kink.

"You want naughty bad wrong sex, I'll give you naughty bad wrong sex. AND TOSS IN SOME PUNCH TO THE SOLAR PLEXUS ANGST!!"

[tawg]

Lol. Well, you can't deny that this does tick off the 'naughty', 'bad', AND the 'wrong' boxes :p

I spent a lot of time thinking back the times when I or someone I've known has been in mourning, trying to find the right words to express wanting someone to get better so much that all you want to do is yell at them because nothing else has worked. And, of course, Will just isn't a guy who could yell in that situation, so he just keeps giving more and hoping. So, um, it's nice to know that I did that right?

I really wanted to write more of Burt and Kurt in this, but the Will-Finn mess was big enough and I was worried that if I examined the Hummel-Hudson household to closely the angst would make the fic collapse on itself.

[momoda6]

D:

I hate when angst doesn't have a happy ending. It's all so complicated and I don't know where they stand with each other and I just feel for both of them and want to have an intervention or something.

Like, I can't work out if Will likes Finn or just feels like it's an obligation or something, and I don't know if Finn likes Will either. And I'm just desperate for them to fix things. D: And I want to hug them. Forever. I don't care if they're fictional, I'm giving them e-hugs.

But it a weird way, I kind of love this. Because even though it's totally screwed up, Will and Finn are totally dependant on each other and can't not be. And if you squint and ignore the grief and pretending it's Finn's dad, dominant!Finn is totally hot.

Oh and I don't want Carole to die ever. Because Finn WOULD be totally screwed over by it. And she's too epic to die. D:< Let's hope the demin bleach doesn't get to her.

So, um, yeah. Don't know how to comment on this properly. D: Great fic though, the emotions came across amazingly.

[tawg]

Your sad-faces please me? I understand what you mean - I've been reduced to an upset mess by fic myself. You wanting to give them hugs and make it all better is a compliment to me, because it meant that you found their messed up little relationship believable and became a little invested in their outcome. Or maybe you just like hugs. Either way, it's a win.

I think that Will does legitimately like Finn as a person, which is why he takes himself out of the teacher-box in the first place. But does he like Finn in a romantic/sexual way? I don't think he ever got the chance to really examine that before he had a crying boy on top of him and a hand down his pants. In the same way I think that Finn likes and trusts Will, which is why he reaches out to him instead of Burt or Kurt, but he's so wrapped up in grief that he takes what he can without thinking about whether it's what he really wants. I tried to imply with the ending that Finn returns to Will (and Will lets him) because there's something more than just anger and pain between them.

[momoda6]

I got the feeling at the end that they just couldn't break out of it and they were just getting back into their old habits, which is why I kind of wanted a resolution, and was kind of depressed because I thought they were back at square one. D: But I guess I should have realised, with the things like 'something different in his eyes', that it wasn't. I don't know, it's late. I like your explanation a whole lot better anyway. xD

So yay for them actually having genuine feelings for each other and not doing things out of obligation. And yay for Finn maybe sort of getting better?

On a different note, I wish things were as simple as just sticking your hand down a teacher's pants and saying 'this is what I want' and getting it. >.> I mean, that takes some balls, man. Go dominant!Finn.

[tawg]

I certainly don't think they have a happy ending, just maybe not a soul-crushing, 'drown myself in TEARS' ending. They're very messed up, and their relationship is built on the fact that they are so messed up, by their own lives and by each other. But I like the idea that they have the potential to be less messed up, at the very least.

I wish things were as simple as just sticking your hand down a teacher's pants
Lol. I'll be sure to include this method of action in future fics.

[shadowbyrd]

I don't think we have enough messed up Will/Finn floating around, and I have to say, I really enjoyed this. The fact that Will ends up going along with all this because he's so desperate to make things better for Finn, how he ends up having to get up from the table at the staff meeting.

I also loved Finn punching Will.

I think I've mentioned before commenting on another of your fics, but I love that you bring everyone into the fic - so often I read fic for pairings I enjoy across lots of different fandoms and it's almost like it's just the two of them in a capsule. I particularly like Emma and Kurt (and the idea that Kurt might know what's going on with Finn and Will).

So, yeah. Overall, awesome fic!

[tawg]

I find it hard to think of two characters in Glee being together and having it just be them. Terri is going to be a third person in any relationship that Will has because he carries her around in his head and heart, and Finn very much defines himself by what other people think of him, so his family and his friends and his teammates are going to be influencing what he wants and what decisions he makes. And then in this fic I had the two of them consciously cutting those important people out of their lives, and then looked at how that affected them.

In my head, Kurt would be quite jealous of any significant relationship that Finn and Will could have - Will is the father figure/friend/lover that Kurt has never had, and he's also taking away something that is very important to Kurt, Finn. I really wanted to imply with this fic that while Emma was encouraging Will to stick by Finn, Kurt was working on Finn's end to get his shit together. Oh Kurt.

Anyway (after all of that ramble), thank you for your comment :D

[shadowbyrd]

You make a very good point about Finn, though I've honestly never thought that Kurt would be jealous of Finn for getting together Will...that's quite an interesting idea.

And, cute as they can be in the show, I adore Will and Emma as friends.

But yeah - I also have to congratulate you for not flinching away from all the nasty little truths. 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.

[health_hazzard]

I was almost going to close this post and never look at it again when I read that it had a character death. They always make me tear up -which it did- or they make me feel bad when the writing does not seem adequate for such a significant issue

[tawg]

I don't like sadfic myself for a lot of the reasons you listed, so I'm glad I didn't fall into any of the traps like lame writing or the magical band aid ending.

Will is such a trooper. His relationship with Terri set him up (to me) as someone who is in for the long haul, no matter how bad it gets and he only walked away from Terri when she betrayed his trust. However, in this relationship with Finn, they're clearly not equals, and trust is a much sticker issue, which is the way it's been since the beginning of their friendship. It's a lot harder for Will to find the end point of 'okay, this is clearly not working'.

Anyway, enough rambling. I'm really glad that you liked this story - your five stars has me quite tickled.