Fic. Hollywood Ending
Title: Hollywood Ending
Author: alicebluegown16
Rating: R
Summary: Finn and Will bonding over movies, moral ambiguity, and how much it sucks sometimes being a grown up.
Characters/Pairings: Will, Finn, Will/Finn (unrequited), mentions of past Rachel/Finn, Mercedes, Kurt/Sam, Puck/Quinn, Rachel/Mike, Santana/Brittany, Artie/Tina, and OFC
AN: For the winn prompt: Finn and Will going on an accidental date. This is a sequel to my Will/Finn bonding over music fic Closer. FYI: John Boehner is the Republican congressman for Allen County. He is very tan, some would say to an Oompa Loompa degree.
Movies referenced are: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Producers(the original 1968 version), Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, History of the World, The Searchers, The Quiet Man, The Man Who Shot Libery Valence, L.A. Confidential, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cat Ballou, The Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, and Babe. And for your amusement: Matthew Morrison singing and dancing to Springtime for Hitler.
Warnings: For angst and Finn's head space being a very random trippy hormonal sixteen year old boy place. Slight spoilers/mentions of some Seaon Two plot points and characters.
“Finn?”
He turns; looking slightly confused because his name is being called by a familiar voice, but that wouldn’t make sense, there’s no way-
“Mr. Schue? Umm, hey. Are you…are you here to see the movie?”
He almost cringes at what a dumb question that is. Why else would Mr. Schue be standing here in line?
But instead of pointing this out, his teacher just nods and smiles.
“Yeah, saw in the paper that the college was showing a Mel Brooks movie every Saturday and I figured why not? It’s cheaper than the multiplex and I had nothing better to do. I just can’t believe this is your kind of thing.”
Finn shrugs.
“I like Mel Brooks movies. Gene Wilder is freaking awesome. Except for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Which I know isn’t a Mel Brooks movie, but…dude…that was just fifty different kind of creepy. It totally made me scared of bubble gum. And Congressmen.”
“Why would you be scared of---ah, yes. John Boehner.” Sudden comprehension dawning and Mr. Schue gestures to his face vaguely with his hands
“Right. Yeah…with the orangeness. He does have kind of an Oompa Loompa quality about him.”
Finn’s triumphant yell of “Thank you!” has a couple of people turning to look at them, but he can’t help it because no one else understands why he’s incapable of watching the news without having a full on PTSD level flashback.
It’s a nice moment of camaraderie but eventually, the comfortable silence begins to teeter into the slightly awkward end of the spectrum as they both sort of stand there shifting from foot to foot staring at each other, the ‘Sooo, this is kind of weird’ hanging in the air unspoken.
Something similar to this happened to Finn when he was in third grade. Turning a corner in the grocery store and running straight into his teacher, Ms. Redemeyer.
That had sucked beyond the telling of it. At that age, he hadn’t even been able to wrap his mind around the possibility of teachers being actual people. He’d been half convinced they lived at the school, surviving on cafeteria food and sleeping on cots in the gym like refugees from a natural disaster. It had been an invasion of his territory. He remembers how he’d desperately clutched the box of Lucky Charms he’d been holding to his chest like a shield and ran away as fast as he could, terrified she was going to suddenly start quizzing him on state capitals.
This is terrifying in a whole different way.
Because Ms. Redemeyer had been roughly eight thousand years old with a big ugly hairy mole on her chin. She was an evil old bat who always seemed like she was mocking him when she corrected his math on the blackboard, confiscated his Gameboy, made him stay in for recess for fidgeting too much during class, and she smelled like cabbage.
Mr. Schue is nothing like Ms. Redemeyer.
Mr. Schue laughs and smiles and listens to his students problems and dances to crappy white boy rap music during Glee. (But also has a secret stash of awesome angsty angry bad day music that he shared with Finn.)
When Finn forgets what they’re talking about in Spanish class because it just popped into his head ‘I wonder if Mr. Schue does the rolly tongue thing when he kisses, that’d be fucking hot as fuck’, Mr. Schue always manages to remind him of where they are in the lesson without making Finn feel like a total dumbass.
He also wears this nice cologne that smells like sandalwood or something spicy and expensive and Finn might have possibly once or twice buried his nose in Mr. Schue’s neck and sniffed him when the other man hugged him, which Finn swears isn’t nearly as creepy as it sounds.
(Finn feels kind of guilty about mooching a Mr. Schue hug because he hadn’t been that upset when he found out that Rachel and Mike were dating each other, but he couldn’t exactly say that, could he? How would he be able to explain how totally not upset he was by the whole thing without starting a billion questions? Besides, who turns down a free hug? Maybe Mr. Schue needed the hug just as much as Finn did. It’s like, totally good for your health and stuff, touching people. There’ve been studies on it.)
Yeah, Finn’s definitely not a little kid anymore and he is very, very, very aware of the fact that Mr. Schue is an actual person. What with having pervy dreams about him at least twice a week.
Finn kind of suspects that’s about to get upped to possibly three or more times a week because good fucking God, Mr. Schue in his casual bumming around on the weekend outfit of a plain white t-shirt and a pair of ‘feel free to stare at my ass’ jeans is practically making Finn’s mouth water.
Those are so definitely not the jeans Mr. Schue wears to work. The denim is soft and worn as thin as paper and they’re slightly tighter than usual. But not in a skeevy trying too hard way, just in a sort of stealth sexy way that creeps up on you and has you wanting to thank Levi Strauss without really knowing the reason why. Finn notices there’s a small rip high up on Mr. Schue’s left thigh and he has to put his hands in his pockets to keep from touching it.
He doesn’t realize Mr. Schue has asked him a question because the sudden possibility that the man might not be wearing underwear has broken something in his brain.
“What?”
“I said, did you want to sit together?”
Sure. He can sit with Mr. Schue at the movies. That’s not wrong. It makes sense. They’re both here to see the same movie, they know each other, why shouldn’t they sit together?
In the dark.
With almost no space between them and their arms constantly brushing on the shared arm rest and their legs sort of tangling together because movie aisles are so not designed for freakish ginormatrons of Finn’s height.
Yeah, that’s not all inappropriate.
**
Finn’s kind of relieved he’s seen The Producers roughly fifty times already because it’s only by instinct that he knows when to laugh.
In fact, he actually spends most of the time trying not to get caught staring like a great hulking creeper at Mr. Schue laughing. Because it turns out Mr. Schue is one of those people who gets totally into the movie, even when he’s already seen it, and it’s kind of seriously fucking adorable. He’s leaning forward in his seat, eyes lighting up at every increasingly bizarre plot twist like he has no clue how this whole ‘lets produce a musical about Hitler that’s guaranteed to flop’ scheme is going to unfold.
Finn doesn’t get people who swear that horror movies are the best date movies (not that this is a date) because they never end in make out sessions for him. If it’s a good horror movie and does its job of being scary he’s tense and uncomfortable, desperately trying to pretend he’s not screaming like a twelve year old girl on the inside. And if it’s bad, then he’s just bored and antsy and his date ends up glaring at him as he squirms like a five year old who just snorted a dozen Pixie Stix.
Comedies on the other hand, are the perfect first date movie genre (this is not a date) because knowing what your date finds funny is essential. No one wants to be already married with kids and only then learn that your husband or wife doesn’t crack up at Leo Bloom’s ‘I’m wet and I’m still hysterical’ freak out.
Which Mr. Schue totally does, so points to him. His future hypothetical life partner/spouse/whatever will be relieved. At this observation, Finn pictures Mr. Schue blissfully married to someone else and so busy with his perfect white-picket-fence family that he decides to quit directing Glee. The guilt at how much this possibility scares him makes the popcorn Finn’s eating suddenly taste like packing peanuts.
During the Springtime for Hitler number, Mr. Schue leans over and whispers in Finn’s ear “So, I’m pretty sure we have our big showstopper for Regionals right here. It’d be a real attention grabber, don’t you think?”
But since it’s dark in the theater, he sort of misjudges the distance and his lips end up brushing Finn’s earlobe. Which wouldn’t have been bad except for the fact that Finn almost chokes to death when he accidentally inhales the mouthful of ice cubes he’d been chewing on.
Seriously, his life flashes before his eyes and everything. It doesn’t take very long and what’s there is really, really boring, which only makes Finn kind of depressed.
Oh, and if he had died, he’s probably end up going to Hell for the naughty bad wrong thoughts he has about Mr. Schue singing and dancing in those knee high black boots that the SS officers are wearing.
Man, he is really sucking at this whole ‘enjoying the funny movie’ concept.
Afterwards, Mr. Schue asks if he wants to grab a bite.
And Finn says “Yeah, sure. I could eat.”
Partly because well, he’s hungry. He’s always hungry and that teeny tiny bag of popcorn hadn’t even begun to fill him up. And partly because going with Mr. Schue to lunch seems slightly less pathetic than his previous plan of going home and jerking off to Mr. Schue in blue jeans and a t-shirt. Again.
**
Their waitress is staring at him impatiently, clearly wondering why the fuck he’s taking so long.
Finn is torn.
He really wants to order a burger, but that’s seriously not acceptable date food. Except that this isn’t a date and if he tries to order something date-like (nothing that will get in his teeth, or mess up his clothes, or make his breath smell) Mr. Schue might figure out that he wants this to be a date.
“Finn? You ready to order?” Mr. Schue prompts.
Real smooth. To anyone it’d sound like they’re friends. Or possibly more. Like Mr. Schue is his boyfriend and they’re out on a date and just like usual he can’t make up his mind and it’s a little in-joke between them that they’ll tease each other about when the waitress walks away, and Mr. Schue will roll his eyes and pretend he doesn’t think it’s amusing…
The waitress clears her throat and Finn panics.
“Uh, burger and fries. Iced Tea.”
Shit.
Okay, failure on the ordering of date-like food. But he is really hungry. Besides, Mr. Schue would have thought it was weird if he suddenly only wanted an appetizer or something. He’s seen Finn put away an entire pizza by himself.
And there had been that moment.
He wonders if their waitress thinks Mr. Schue is his boyfriend. They’re near the college campus and when he’s not in his seven thousand teacher-layers, Finn bets Mr. Schue could probably pass for a student.
Finn wishes he could get away with calling the other man by his first name. Unless their waitress assumes the whole ‘Mr. Schue’ thing is some sort of kinky role play.
Not that he’s ever thought about that or anything.
“So, I have to say, I never would have figured you for a Mel Brooks fan.”
A split second and then duh, of course, they just came from a Mel Brooks movie, it makes sense for them to talk about this.
Finn answers without really thinking, which is always dangerous.
“Eli-Mr. Puckerman loved them. We…Puck and I, we used to watch them with him.”
It feels strange calling him Mr. Puckerman.
No, scratch that. It feels strange calling him Eli without the “Uncle” in front of the name.
Mr. Schue gives him an ‘I see’ eyebrow raise.
“And how old were you two at the time?”
“Not nearly old enough to get the jokes.”
Finn smiles to himself when he remembers Sophie coming home and yelling at her husband for letting them watch Young Frankenstein. Eli claimed it’d been educational since it was based on a book.
“Most of the fun of it was him letting us do something we shouldn’t, you know? I remember when we watched Blazing Saddles and it was the first time I’d ever seen a grown up laugh like that, like full on rolling around on the floor cracking up.”
“Let me guess, the campfire scene?”
Mr. Schue is giving him an indulgent look that clearly says ‘Yes, Finn, the secret’s out. Adults are people too, and we do occasionally laugh at juvenile bathroom humor.’
“He used to think it was hilarious to send the two of us into the video store to ask them if they had a copy of History of the World Part II.”
“Finn, there is no History of the World Part II.”
“Well, sure. I know that now.”
When Mr. Schue laughs, it’s loud and long and Finn’s sitting right across from him in this brightly lit restaurant so he can see his nice white teeth and the way his eyes crinkle up in the corners and it’s all so overwhelming he doesn’t even notice the waitress has brought them their food.
A flurry of plates being set down and glasses refilled, napkins and ketchup bottles passing back and forth. Finn notes that Mr. Schue ordered a chicken sandwich. He’s unclear where that ranks on the ‘Appropriate Date Food’ list.
“I never knew Puck’s dad---“
Mr. Schue cuts himself off, seemingly unsure of how to finish that sentence, so Finn finishes the thought for him because he knows what Mr. Schue wants to say.
“He wasn’t a bad guy. Not completely.”
Finn looks up from absently tracing one of his fries through his ketchup and finds Mr. Schue is absolutely focused on him, food totally forgotten, clearly waiting to see if he’s going to elaborate on that.
And maybe it’s because this is the first time anyone ever seemed interested in his opinion on the matter, or maybe it’s that Mr. Schue looks like someone else right now, but suddenly Finn wants to elaborate.
“Sometimes I think it would have been better if he had been a complete bad guy, you know? Maybe it wouldn’t have messed things up so much, if it had been expected. If he hadn’t been someone worth missing.”
Finn thinks about back in the day when he and Puck went easily between each others houses all the time, back when Puck was still Noah and his parents were Uncle Eli and Aunt Sophie and Finn’s mom was Aunt Carole and Puck didn’t pull away from her hugs, back when the two of them actually talked, back when being best friends meant something.
He hastily wipes at his eyes because he is totally not going to start bawling into his hamburger right now.
“I miss him. I feel like I shouldn’t because Puck’s my friend and what he did was shitty and wrong. But he was Uncle Eli. He taught Puck how to play the guitar and built us a totally awesome tree house and you don’t do that kind of thing if you’re a bad guy, right? But you don’t clear out your kids’ college fund and skip town either. It’s like he checked off everything on the Being a Dad To-Do list and then when he was finished, he just left. Like now he was free to go off and do all the stuff he really wanted. And no one’s allowed to talk about him anymore. It’s like he’s dead. No, it’s worse than that. It’s like he never existed, or at least Puck doesn’t want him to exist. We fought the last time I mentioned him…Puck busted my arm up.”
His arm still aches sometimes, when Finn lets himself think about this stuff. It had been one constant dull throb those first early days of him and Puck fighting last year. Finn knows there’s a word for that, psycho-something, and he’s not really comfortable with the fact that he’s possibly a little bit crazy.
Mr. Schue puts a hand on his arm. That’s all. No speeches or anything about how it’ll all work out because they both know that’s sometimes not the case. But it loosens something up in his chest and his arm doesn’t hurt anymore.
Finn knows that later he’ll feel guilty about spilling all of this stuff behind Puck’s back, but right now it’s just such a relief to get it all out, he can’t make himself care.
They both kind of sit there not saying anything, not really needing to say anything, until Finn can’t stand it anymore, it all seeming to feel too big and significant for a restaurant filled with a bunch of other people. He ducks his head down and reaches for his burger, taking a huge bite.
He wants to say ‘Thank you’ but his mom would kill him for talking with his mouth full.
**
They talk about movies.
Finn confesses his love of Westerns, blushing slightly because he’s about ten years too old to kind of still want to be a cowboy sometimes. But Mr. Schue just grins and proclaims that he loves John Wayne movies and they talk about how creepy he was in The Searchers and how hot Maureen O’Hara was in The Quiet Man and how The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence is so amazing that it totally makes up for all the shitty John Wayne impressions it spawned and Finn can’t believe it when Mr. Schue tells him that John Wayne’s first name was actually ‘Marion.’
“So, what’s your favorite movie?”
“L.A. Confidential. It’s a noir. Well, not really, since most noir films were made in the 1940s and 1950s, so it’s kind of a throwback.”
“Noir?” Finn repeats the unfamiliar word. “That’s not Spanish, right?”
“It’s French.”
“So, a French movie about Los Angeles.”
“The movie isn’t in French. The word noir means black. It’s a kind of movie style; they’re usually darker, lots of backstabbing and double dealing, women who can’t be trusted, crooked politicians.”
“Sounds like a Warren Zevon song.”
Mr. Schue grins at the comparison and Finn is absurdly proud of himself. He likes the way Mr. Schue talks about stuff, how he explains things without making Finn feel stupid or making it seem like homework.
“Yes, well it has excellent dialogue and Warren is all about the lyrics, so I guess it’s an apt comparison. It’s sort of a good cop/bad cop detective story…except it’s more like really bad cops versus the not as bad cops. Lots of moral grayness.”
Finn adds it to his mental list along with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Paul Newman and Robert Redford spending a whole movie asking ‘What would John Wayne do?’ and then doing the opposite), Cat Ballou (Lee Marvin playing both a washed up drunken gunslinger and his evil twin) and The Seven Samurai (Finn hadn’t even known that The Magnificent Seven was based on a Japanese movie until Mr. Schue told him.)
Movies segue naturally into television and they both eventually confess mutual addictions to the Food Network.
Finn doesn’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of, after all he’s a freaking bottomless pit, so watching a cooking channel is like food porn for him (especially the chick who cooks the Italian food, because she’s sexy as hell.) But it cracks him up at the way Mr. Schue attempts to justify it, like he’s telling his sponsor all about how he became an alcoholic or something.
“It started out as just background noise when I would grade papers…and then I started watching Paula Deen. It’s like a car wreck. A car wreck wrapped in bacon and then slathered with butter and covered in cheese.”
“Dude, Paula Deen is my hero. Did you see the one where she put the hamburger between the two Krispy Kreme donuts and then deep fried it?”
They’re both intensely discussing how the original Japanese version of Iron Chef is a thousand times better than the American one because Bobby Flay is an epic douchebag and the overdramatic voice dubbings are always the best part.
Mr. Schue nods sympathetically as Finn describes the dreaded Iron Chef Phenomena where you know intellectually that there’s no way you’d ever want to eat squid, but after watching them cook all those kick ass amazingly elaborate dishes and everyone breathlessly commenting the entire hour about how incredible it’s going to taste, you end up sitting there thinking ‘God damn it, maybe I do want to try it. Fuck, where the hell am I gonna get a squid in Lima, Ohio at three a.m?’
Suddenly Finn imagines cooking with Mr. Schue. Not squid or anything weird like that, maybe a soup or spaghetti sauce. He can see Mr. Schue dipping a wooden spoon in to taste it and getting a bit of sauce on his bottom lip. Finn would reach out and wipe it off and Mr. Schue would suck Finn’s finger into his mouth, warm and wet, barest scrape of his teeth, cheeks hollowing and Finn would pull his hand away, shove him up against the counter calling him a tease, and Mr. Schue would smirk at him daring him to do something about it…
Finn’s trying to remember from that lone visit to his apartment if Mr. Schue’s kitchen counter had been wide enough for them to manage having sex on it when he realizes their food is gone.
He’s more than a little disappointed because that means their not-really-a -date date is over.
But then instead of motioning for the check, Mr. Schue pushes their plates out of the way.
“So, I know it’s not any of my business and there’s nothing wrong if it is true, but I have to ask…”
Fuck.
Fucking fuckity fuck.
“Brittany and Santana, are they or aren’t they?”
Finn lets out a relief tinged laugh and shakes his head.
“Who the hell knows? Kurt suspects if it is true, it’s all just an experimenting thing. But Santana totally kneed Karofsky in the nuts for calling Brittany a retard, so I kind of want to think it’s the real deal.”
And thus begins the gossip session (keeping updated on his students, Mr. Schue calls it. Yeah, whatever helps him sleep at night.)
Finn talks about how Puck’s freaking out over having dinner with Quinn’s family soon because once you’ve knocked the girl up, it’s kind of impossible to make a good impression on the parents.
They both speculate on how much longer it’s going to take before Mercedes finally snaps and beats the ever loving crap out of the new girl with her own Bible for all the bullshit ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ smack talking she does about Kurt.
(Finn wishes he could tell Kurt about this conversation, how very not eager Mr. Schue seems to come to Jenny’s defense and how awesomely protective and Burt-like he sounds when he rolls his eyes and comments “That’s very open minded and Christian of her, except I don’t think I’ve ever noticed her doing much on the whole ‘loving the sinner’ front and oh yes, Kurt being who he is isn’t a sin.” Because for all his insistence that he doesn’t care about some other person’s opinion, Finn thinks Kurt needs to know everyone’s got his back.)
“I’m sorry.” Mr. Schue says, after he declares Jenny ‘nuttier than a batch of peanut brittle’, not looking very sorry at all.
“I shouldn’t say something like that. It was inappropriate. She’s very sheltered and probably doesn’t know any better. Maybe she’ll outgrow it. Look at Puck; he’s gotten a lot more…tolerant.”
Finn smirks when he remembers Puck telling Jenny that as a member of the Chosen people, he had a direct line to God and how He’d said she totally needed to pull the stick out of her ass.
“Mr. Schue, chill. Kurt’s my brother. You think I haven’t said worse about her?”
And then Mr. Schue asks him about how he’s adjusting to living with Kurt and he gives a bare bones account of how it’d had been really rough at first but now it’s actually not that bad as long as he never ever touches any of Kurt’s hair products or attempts to be helpful by tossing Kurt’s laundry in with his and Kurt remembers to put a tie on the door when he’s down there with Sam.
“You mean you’ve caught them-“
“Many, many, many times.”
Finn does his best to project an air of ‘I’m totally fine with the man on man action in general, just not when one of them is my step-brother.’
They even very cautiously broach the subject of Rachel and Mike. Finn leaves it at “Look, he came to me to see if it’d be okay to ask her out. I wouldn’t have told him to go for it if I hadn’t meant it. She talks less with him, he talks more, Artie’s stopped being paranoid that Tina’s gonna suddenly run off with him so they can make super Asian babies, it all worked out.”
Finn doesn’t know how it comes up, but it turns out that Mr. Schue had Ms. Redemeyer for third grade too.
“How is it possible that she was still teaching then? She was ancient even back when I had her! God, I hated her so much. She must have confiscated a dozen comic books from me. I could probably retire early on the money I’d make on EBay from all the crap she had hidden away in that locked cabinet behind her desk. It’s amazing I ever became a teacher after living through her for a year. Tell me, does she still smell like sauerkraut?”
“Yep.”
“And does she still have-“
“Yep. It’s still there. And it’s still hairy and gross and moves when she talks.”
“I actually used to have nightmares about that thing.”
“Dude, me too. It had teeth and sounded all creepy and British and evil like Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs.”
At Mr. Schue’s expression, Finn cuts himself off.
“Just me? Okay then.”
They’re debating Batman (Finn) versus Spiderman (Mr. Schue) when they both realize they’ve been sitting here for two and a half hours and that the waitress looks ready to kick them out.
Mr. Schue pays the bill and Finn leaves a huge tip.
He walks Mr. Schue to his car.
He really, really, really wants to kiss him.
Finn figures he could joke about it.
“Hey, dinner and a movie. This was kind of like a date, you know?”
And Mr. Schue would smile a little.
“Yes, I guess it sort of was.”
They’d both look at each other and then Mr. Schue would step closer.
Finn would let his eyes slightly drift down to Mr. Schue’s mouth and Mr. Schue would lick his lips because he’d know what Finn was thinking, that if this was a date and they both had a nice time, there should be some end of date kissing.
He’d kiss Mr. Schue and Mr. Schue would kiss back because they’re not at school right now and it’s like all those rules don’t apply, like they’re just two people who met and hit it off and now they’ve kissed and if they want to do more, they totally can. Without any hand wringing or angst since the age of consent in Ohio is sixteen. Finn knows this because he looked it up. Just in case.
Finn would pull him close and suck on his bottom lip and bury his hands in Mr. Schue’s hair and there’d be fumbling for the door handle, Mr. Schue shoving him into the backseat, a tight fit for them both, but he’d pull Mr. Schue into his lap and they’d still be kissing, they never stopped, he’d just slip his hand up underneath Mr. Schue’s shirt and then he would be touching his skin and Mr. Schue---Will. At this point he’d be laughing and kissing Finn’s throat, saying ‘I think you can call me Will, now.’
How amazing would it be if that actually happened?
But it doesn’t, of course.
Instead, Mr. Schue puts his hand on Finn’s shoulder, looks deep into his eyes and tells him, “I think you should give Puck a call sometime. I know you two aren’t as close as you once were, and I’m not saying it’ll be easy since you’ve both been through a lot and you’re not kids anymore. But I’m sure he misses you, too. Maybe for a start you could invite him to see whatever’s playing next week? I think it’s Blazing Saddles.”
And then Mr. Schue (because that’s who he is and Finn had been an idiot for letting himself think otherwise) gives him one of his awesome teacher hugs.
Mr. Schue wanted to help him.
Mr. Schue listened to his problems and thought he was a good person while he’d been standing here wondering if he put out on the first date.
Oh, Finn was so going to Hell.
**
Instead of heading home, Finn goes to the video store and aimlessly wanders the aisles for awhile. (Hey, guess what? There’s still no History of the World Part II.)
There also unfortunately, isn’t any Butch and Sundance, or Cat Ballou or The Seven Samurai. He figures if he ever wants to see them, he’s probably going to have to order them on Netflix. But then he can’t help wondering how is he going to explain to his mom being suddenly interested in a black and white Japanese movie with subtitles?
(Maybe Mr. Schue owns them? Would he let Finn borrow them if he asked? Would he possibly ever let Finn come over and they could watch them together and then Mr. Schue could explain all the stuff Finn missed?)
Finn’s kind of surprised when he finds L.A. Confidential. He stares at the box and eventually picks it up figuring why the hell not?
If watching a comedy made him feel all mixed up and depressed, then maybe watching a noir movie with lots of moral grayness, backstabbing, and double dealing might actually make him laugh.
He’s so fucked up right now that it almost seems to make sense in his head.
**
His immediate reaction is: ‘Wow, everyone says the word ‘fuck’ in this movie a lot.’
And Mr. Schue is right. It is dark and really violent and there are double and triple crosses that he kind of needs a flowchart to follow, but it’s really suspenseful and tense and the Irish dude is one creepy and coldhearted motherfucker. Finn can’t believe the same actor played Farmer Hogget in Babe. Finn enjoys the rhythm to the way the characters talk, even if he doesn’t understand all the slang, he likes the rat-a-tat-tat of the dialogue. It’s sort of like how he’s a sucky dancer but he can sit back and watch someone like Mike or Matt and appreciate how talented they are.
What really surprises him is that it’s uh…it’s kind of gay.
Not like, porno gay.
But there’s a definite vibe-subtext-whatever between the two cops, Exley and White.
(And Finn can see what Mr. Schue meant about even the good guys not being very good because White is a scary man, beating the shit out of dudes who beat their wives and not caring when they bleed all over his shoes.)
Exley and White fucking hate each other and they spend the whole movie fucking each other over and having other people comment on how they want to fuck each other over and then Exley fucks White’s girlfriend (and even she knows it’s just to get back at White, she even says it, “Fucking me isn’t the same thing as fucking Bud White.”) and when he finds out, White goes fucking crazy and tries to kill Exley.
But by then they’ve both realized that they’re being fucking played by The Man and they immediately forget how much they hate each other and join forces. And it is fucking awesome. Suddenly they’re busting down doors and dangling people out of windows and watching each other’s back during shootouts and having paragraph long conversations with just their eyes.
The last scene is Exley and White clasping hands and staring at each other as if they’re trying to memorize each other’s faces while the female love interest (that they both fucked) tries not to look too third-wheelish because even she knows she’s just the consolation prize.
“Some men get the world. Others get an ex-hooker and a trip to Arizona.”
That’s it.
That’s the last line.
The crooked politicians cover the whole scandal up, White gets pensioned off into early retirement after almost dying, Exley stares after White’s car like his heart has just been ripped out of his chest, and then it’s fade to black.
Well, fuck.
Finn sits back on the couch a little bit stunned.
The French really didn’t mess around, did they? Wait, not actually French, right. Whatever. Still. Yeah, not exactly the feel good movie of the year.
“It’s not that I didn’t like it.”
Finn rushes to explain this to Mr. Schue on Monday because he doesn’t want him to think he hated his favorite movie.
(And Mr. Schue had gotten an absolute panic stricken look when Finn told him he’d rented it, like he was mentally calculating every inappropriate thing about the movie and realizing that it’s a horrifyingly long list-the perfect trifecta of bad language, drugs, and violence. And sex. And the gayness. Which again, might just be Finn’s imagination what with him filtering everything through queer colored glasses lately.)
“It was cool. You were right about the dialogue. I don’t think real people ever talked like that, but it be kind of awesome if they did. It’s just...the ending was kind of sucky, you know? I really wanted White to stay with Exley. I thought they were…they seemed good for each other. Better than Lynn was.”
A look of complete and utter shock, Finn thinks he must have said something wrong and then Mr. Schue gets a funny look on his face.
“You know, I did too. The first time I saw it.”
They stand there and Finn thinks this might possibly be one of those paragraph long conversations with just their eyes moments but then the bell rings and there’s the dull roar of students passing by in the halls and Mr. Schue tells him he should probably head to his next class.
**
He’s dreaming about Mr. Schue.
That’s not unusual, he dreams about Mr. Schue all the time. Except it’s not a sex dream this time.
They’re watching a movie on the couch, Mr. Schue’s arm around him and his head against Finn’s chest, all couple-like and comfortable.
But it’s up in Puck’s old tree house. Somehow with that magical only in dreams physics, they’ve managed to fit a whole state of the art entertainment system and a huge sofa up here.
Finn starts to ask how they got the couch up the tree (and why the walls have the cowboy wallpaper from his old bedroom), but Mr. Schue shushes him because this is his favorite part in the movie.
It’s the last scene in L.A. Confidential. Except not really because the car is stopping.
The car stops and White gets out and he turns around and walks back to Exley and they have one of those eye conversations with each other, one that says ‘Let’s be partners and watch each other’s back and catch bad guys together and maybe someday we won’t be so angry all the time.’
And then…holy shit, this is so not the ending of the movie he remembers, the camera zooming in on the big romantic Hollywood ending kiss between White and Exley, while Lynn’s car gets smaller and smaller in the distance, heading out for Arizona all by herself.
Finn’s dream fades to black with Mr. Schue just about to lean in to kiss him, saying how he fixed the movie and isn’t that ending a lot better?
When Finn wakes up, he kind of feels like crying.
Next story in the series: All in My Head.