Chapter Text
She felt bloody amazing! She hadn't felt this happy in..well..ever! The beat of the music pulsed from the balls of her feet to her fingertips. She felt so light and free; the weight of her Rae armor nonexistent: she didn't need it tonight. Her mood was also very...affectionate; her ever-growing horn was bursting tonight and she couldn't take it anymore. The kiss she shared with Archie only aroused her curiosity all the more. What would it be like to kiss him? To touch his sweltering flesh? To feel those deliberate fingers articulate a message a little more intimately...That's it. Dancing couldn't expel the sultry energy vibrating throughout her anymore. She needed to find him.
Scanning the crowd proved to be more difficult than she'd expected. The ecstasy, the dizzying lights, the constant movement of bodies and shapes were hypnotizing from within but, from outside the dance floor, they just made her nauseous. Rae felt her way to a somewhat secluded section of the designated party area in the old mansion and leaned against it. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek to the cool brick surface and, after a song or two (it was hard to tell with techno), she felt refreshed enough to resume her mission.
As if a sign from above--a sign from an Adonis Finn Nelson was no doubt descendant of--she heard the familiar blaring crap that is Babylon Zoo. She could feel the smile on her face and half-believed it would split her face in two it was so wide. Hoping to catch his roaming gaze, she scanned the room again, with a tingling sensation in her stomach that was quickly spreading elsewhere, and she found him. His view, however, was obstructed by a familiar high ponytail. Great.
His heart wasn't in it at first but he soon put all thoughts of Rae and Archie out of his mind and began to enjoy letting loose. He felt a pang of guilt for sullying their song but another, darker part of him relished the ironic hostility of it. Shaking his head, he tried to forget it all and just savor the rest of the night. Chloe's hands were insisting on more contact than Finn felt comfortable with. Doing his best to keep it friendly, he created as much space as he could, but when her hands brushed his stomach and rested on his waist he couldn't help but remember the sensation of Rae's hands pressed there not but a few hours ago. The guilt became overwhelming.
Finn pressed his forehead to Chloe's but kept their mouths a safe distance apart, shouting, as clear as he could, "Chlo, nothin' can 'appen between us alrigh'?" He kept his eyes closed for a moment; he didn't want to see how this news affected her.
"Why?" she pleaded. Her voice intimated a pang of rejection.
Looking into her eyes, Finn prodded, "C'mon, ya can't tell meh it's not obvious."
Something passed through her gaze..understanding? Disappointment? Although he'd like to think he's fairly good at reading people, Finn couldn't gauge Chloe too well; he'd always figured her as superficial, shallow, nothing in her head but Top 40 and fit boys, but maybe he wasn't giving her enough credit. In only a moment, whatever emotions her eyes had conveyed dissolved and her face was blank, if a bit expectant.
"Please tell me it's Rae. If you're turnin' me down, I at least want to know ah'm losin' to the bettah man." She smirked, the amusement barely reaching her eyes.
Finn smiled sheepishly and nodded, appreciative of Chloe's perceptiveness. He made a mental note to try to think better of her. Just as they were about to break apart of their own accord, a force of nature named Rachel Earl stepped in to do it for them.
Initially, her stomach had dropped, the tingling dissipated and was replaced by a painfully hollow and impossibly heavy sensation in her gut. Eyes shut tight, Rae counted to ten, and again, and again. As this tactic was clearly failing, she tried to think of something-anything-to push her present situation out of mind. A face cropped up in her thoughts: beautiful, broken Tixie. Tix, whom she'd spoken to just a few hours ago, had given Rae the confidence to go to the rave in the first place. After Rae heard Tix recount her momentous day, she couldn't help but feel elated: Tix had finally spent time with Danny Two-Hats, just the two of them, and she even invited him to her dinner date with Rae. She had apologized to Rae for doing so but also said that, if it weren't for Rae, there's no way she could have done it. Rae suddenly felt like a coward as she admitted to Tix why she was calling: her mistake of trying to free Karim's birds, the fight with her mum, and how she was now standing in Finn's hallway, calling her younger friend for advice. There was a pause then a sound Rae's heart had been aching to hear: a giggling Tixie.
"Oh, Rae, don't you see? This is perfect!"
"Wha' is?"
"I'll see you tomorrow."
"Wait-what are ya on about?"
"I'll see you tomorrow at the debrief. We can fill each other in on what happened on our dates."
"Tix, it's hardly a date. The whole gang will be there! Not ta mention every cool person in Lincolnshire-not that there's too many a them. Besides, I haven't even agreed to go yet."
"Yet. Rae, it's a date. You are going to a rave with the fittest boy you have ever met, on the back of his scooter, and you are going to dance with him. Now, go get ready! You're going make me late for my first date!"
They both squealed into their receivers.
"Oh, alrigh'! Good luck, Fatty."
"Have fun, Skinny."
Well, there's no way Rae's going to turn up for the debrief with this story. She equipped herself with her Rae armor and charged toward her two friends.
"Rae, wha' the fook?" Finn inquired with an open frown and furrowed brows. He and Chloe turned toward her and she dropped her grip on her friends' arms. She had their attention and now it was time to explain her absurdity; to take a stand.
"I need ta tell ya somethin'." She glanced at Chloe and Finn could taste the confliction and nervousness between the pair. He stared at Rae's probing, fragile gaze, wondering what silent plea she was asking of Chloe and, out of his peripheral vision, clocked Chloe almost imperceptibly shake her head. That seemed to seal Rae's determination. She straightened up and breathed in, looking from Finn to Chloe and back to Finn. What the fuck was going on?
As Rae opened her mouth to speak, Chloe interjected. "Rae! Finn was just sayin' how this is your song."
This seemed to stop Rae in her tracks. Finn dropped his gaze to his fascinating fingernails, studied them for what felt like an hour but was realistically not even a minute. He bit at his thumb as he swept his eyes back up to Rae's. Her eyes were bright, matching the smile on her face, and all previous conflict was gone. He realized then that he was smiling, too.
"Right, well," Chloe briefly placed her hand on Finn's shoulder to break the couple's insistent eye contact, then placed herself slightly behind her best friend, resting her chin on Rae's shoulder, "I'll leave you two lovebirds to it, then." she said with a wink and a small embrace of Rae's arms. Rae returned Chloe's smile and watched her friend retreat from the battleground then turned to fully take-in her conquest.