Call Me Friend But Keep Me Closer

By Jakelovelucy

> **Author beginning notes:** this was supposed to be more finn/jake-centric because you know how much i love a little enemies to lovers.. but instead i went the finn-study route with confusing gay actions. you know how it is. content warning for slightly-drunk kissing! theyre both pretty sobered up theyre just stupid lol. ok have fun <3 title is from billie eilish's "when the party's over"!
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Life didn’t get any easier, it seemed, even for the heir of a Larsen. When everyone in your vicinity hated you because of your rich, hegemonic asshole of a father and only kept you around for your money and your car, it was a little difficult to stop yourself from going insane.

It wasn’t helping that he hadn’t been sleeping well, and the global supply of Emovia was still stagnant. The pain would have to be endured, as always. He tapped his fingers anxiously the wheel and swiveled around, looking at the open trunk as Tara frantically limped into the car, a bulky bag slung over her shoulder. “The other ones?” Finn asked.

“In a minute,” she heaved, scooting further into the van to make room for the others before leaning her head back, the tension in her body releasing with one grand collapse of her arms to her sides. “One of the dogs wouldn’t stop biting at Lenny’s shoes, but they’re all in the crates now.”

“And the others? Shavir?”

Tara lolled her head to her right shoulder, her typically-playful demeanor thrown aside to give Finn a tired stare. “You know she’s fine. I’m saying this for your own good, but it’s really time you get over her.”

“I am,” he said. As if on cue, Shavir came into his peripheral view, hustling toward the car with the others. He turned to face the front again, making a conscious effort not to tap his foot up and down on the accelerator. “Sometimes I just care about people, you know.”

“Yeah, sometimes,” Tara laughed. The car bent down, and he could make out the shuffling of the others getting into the car. A double knock on the back of his carseat indicated it was time to run; he pulled on the gear shift and finally stepped his foot down, speeding fast enough to feel like he was exiting his own body.

When they finally pulled up to Roots, an unwelcome figure sat at the entrance. Finn’s face dropped as Jake Alvaro stood up at the sound of their engine, dusting himself off and waiting patiently, eyes glued to the car’s side door. It’d been three months since the uprising in Queens, and to Finn’s dismay he’d seen his ex’s tumultuous situationship far too many times at his one place of refuge. He found solace only in the fact that it seemed that the two were going through a break-up, according to the eavesdropping he did between Shavir and Troy the other day.

It was annoying to see someone be as diligent as Shavir about love, be as stubborn about things that didn’t do them any good. It was a constant reminder of what Finn could never be on his own volition; he could only assert dominance with his words, but when it came down to it, his actions were too pathetic to stand on their own.

“He’s here again,” he heard Tara whisper in the backseat, and as they all filed out he watched as the man stood up, eyes searching for Shavir and widening when they found her. He undid his seatbelt and shimmied out of the driver seat, narrowly missing hitting Shavir with the car door as she speed-walked away with the crates, Jake trailing after her.

He put his arm out, stopping Jake in his tracks. “She doesn’t want to talk,” he said firmly, using his height as an advantage to intimidate him. “Can’t you take the hint?”

Jake glowered at him. “It’s none of your business, so let me go.”

“What happened to respecting people’s boundaries?”

“I came to apologize and then leave,” Jake spat out. His eye bags signaled that he was probably having a rough night as it was — not that Finn would go easier on him out of pity. “Okay? So just let me go do that, and then I’ll go.”

“What makes you think she wants to hear your apology?” Finn said. He gripped Jake’s forearm as the man tried to push forward, surprised at Jake’s strength when he tried to shake out of his grasp. “Just leave now. See her another time if you really have to.”

“And who are you to tell me what to do?” Jake’s face inched slightly closer to his, though seemingly less as an intimidation tactic and more because he couldn’t keep his balance. “You don’t know anything about me, so fuck off and let me go.”

He tightened his grasp on Jake’s forearm, hovering over his face like a vulture. “What did you just say to me?”

“Finn,” a familiar voice echoed, and when he turned around Shavir looked back at him, the crates no longer with her and a dejected sigh painting the corners of her lips. “It’s okay. Just let him go. He’ll leave in a minute.”

The two of them stood there, both struck by her appearance into their scene. Finn loosened his grasp on Jake at the same time that he subtly yanked himself free. “You know,” Finn muttered, “I just care about her.”

The other man looked up at him. “I know,” he replied coldly. “And so do I.”

Finn slipped off his shoes and stepped into his apartment, throwing his jacket onto the couch next to a suit he’d never seen before, before plopping himself onto the couch and closing his eyes. The drive back had given him too much time to speculate what Jake and Shavir could have been talking about, and it was such a childish action, that sort of curiosity and jealousy, that it made him feel a little sick of himself. He reached into his pants pocket and popped out a slightly crumpled paper carton. He’d been chewing on nicotine gums recently, what with Emovia being low on supply and the demand for emotional distance still well on the rise.

A notification flashed across his Spine as his beeping ringtone played: *Dad*. It had been a while since his father had called him about anything, which meant he wanted something from him. He reluctantly accepted the call.

“There’s an event tomorrow that I need you to be at,” his father’s stern voice crackles into his ears.

*Always straight to business*, Finn thought. “What happened to hi, hello?”

“You know how I’ve been working on the new hospital blueprint? It’s finally been approved and there’s a private event with the mayor to celebrate the start of construction.”

“Private event means other people can’t come, then.”

“Private event,” his dad said, “means that family members can be brought as a plus one. You know how much people love seeing a father-son duo at these things.”

Of course he just asked so he could look good in front of his most powerful work partners. Why would this be different from any of the other times? “I can’t tomorrow,” he sighed, scratching the back of his neck. “I have a thing.” That was a lie, but he could probably stop by Roots or something to make it into the truth.

“I wasn’t asking,” his dad responded. “You’re coming. I already bought you a new suit, didn’t you see it when you walked in?”

Finn looked past his Spine to his couch, where the suit was draped over the cushions in a limp fashion. So that’s what that was.

There was no getting out of this. “What time and where?”

In the morning he found himself walking in Chelsea, in a sort of spur-of-the-moment action that he knew himself was annoying and stalker-ish as hell. He pushed against the door and the chimes rang over his head, lightly tapping his hair as he stepped inside of Soma.

Shavir stood behind the counter in her apron, black T-shirt hugging her arms and revealing a small section of her roots tattoo at the end of the sleeve. She looked up at him with a hopeful stare that swiftly soured into exasperation, and it hurt, Finn thought, every time it happened it still hurt.

“Welcome to Soma, what would you like today?” she greeted him monotonously as he walked up to the counter.

“Hi, Shavir. A hot americano and arugula sandwich,” he replied, fishing in his pocket for his wallet. “Did you sleep well last night?”

“Are you just here to bother me? Make me feel like shit?” She glared at him, and behind the counter Finn could see her apron scrunching up in her clawing fist. “Why wouldn’t I have slept well last night?”

“The raid,” he clarified, realizing. “Not about Jake. I meant did you sleep well after the raid. Did the puppies get situated well?”

The anger in Shavir’s face deflated a little. Finn wished she understood that the only reason he cared about Jake to begin with was because he cared about her. “Oh, right. Yeah. Zeno chipped them all and they all seemed to calm down relatively quickly, and I haven’t seen anything on the news, so that’s good.”

Finn pulled up his Spine out of habit and scoured through the news quickly. No breaking news about a raid. “Yeah, it doesn’t seem like it,” he agreed, before closing his Spine quickly and meeting Shavir’s gaze again. “Actually, could you make the americano iced?”

She nodded and punched something into the screen in front of her. He slid his card across the counter, and she readily took it and swiped it, leaned her hand out to him to pass it back. He took it silently and walked away from the counter, closer to the pick-up station.

It was hard to pretend that he wasn’t curious about what happened last night with her and Jake, but it was probably the same situation as it had been before, the pushing and pulling that they went through every few weeks that Finn would hear about through Roots gossip. He tapped his foot unconsciously on the floor.

“Because I know you’re curious, and I don’t want to talk to you about this again,” Shavir said, and Finn stopped tapping his foot, looked up at her placing his americano on the counter, “I think we’re done for good this time.” She looked back at him, and he could see small tears welling at the corners of her eyes. “But that doesn’t mean I’m looking for a rebound, and it definitely doesn’t mean I want to come back to you. Ever. That’s over forever, Finn.”

He stood up and met her at the pick-up counter, fingers brushing as she passed the americano cup into his hand. “Yeah,” he said. She and Jake were over for good. “But come over whenever you need someone, okay?”

She rolled her eyes, prompting a tear to fall swiftly down her face onto her apron. “No, I won’t.” She picked up the sandwich bag and shoved it into his chest, the force punching the rest of her words into his chest: she and him were also over for good — over forever. “Thank you for coming to Soma.”

He clutched the sandwich to his chest, a little dumbly, as he watched her walk away into the backrooms, disappearing behind the swinging doors.

He liked how he looked in a suit, but he still hated dressing up and going to these events. The parties he threw at his apartment were classy yet carefree, the thrill being gotten from that dichotomy. The celebrations thrown by his father’s colleagues, on the other hand, were anything but carefree. The role of a rich man’s son wasn’t difficult to take on, but it was unbearable to listen to these government puppeteers talking about their new accomplishments when in reality they were doing fuck all to help the people in the city.

Still, he acted as obediently as he could, because he was always weak to his father’s demands.

“Come up to the stage with me,” his dad whispered to him. His dad had bought them complementary attire for the evening, a grayish-blue suit for himself and a slightly darker navy blue one for Finn. “We’ll pose for the photo together.”

Finn rolled his eyes but straightened up his posture, folding the napkin in his lap and placing it on the table. The mayor was announcing the new hospital now, reciting a dramatic lead-up to announcing the renowned architect that made it possible. His dad patted his leg under the table to signal it was their time to stand, and they rose in unison, so perfectly in sync for the watchful eyes.

“Another group of people I’d like to bring up here tonight,” the mayor said as they walked onto the stage, “are the lovely leaders at the Department of Homeland Security that are helping us make this happen. These people help us get the medical supplies we need, and they will be the ones helping us make sure that our patients at this new hospital get the proper treatment they need.

Two of the lovely team leaders at our state’s division of SAFE are here to honor this project’s beginnings with us today. Would you please help me welcome Jake Alvaro and Lisa Sanchez to the stage!”

Finn froze. No way this Jake was the same as the one Shavir had been seeing. But when he turned his head there was the man, thin face and slightly less messy brown hair than the last time he’d seen him, walking up the steps in a forest green blazer-and-pant set. Of course this would happen to him, Finn thought. What a lovely night to share with someone he despised.

Before he could reconfigure the shock on his face, Jake’s eyes locked on his, the other man showing less surprise and more exasperation, a similar look to what Shavir had given him earlier that day. He composed himself and gave a little raised-eyebrow greeting, an amused *Why are you here?* Jake returned his kindness with an eye roll before exchanging a polite smile and handshake with the mayor.

What a kiss-ass, Finn thought as he turned to the front to pose for the photo-op. Not that he was any different.

Too many glasses of wine later, Finn hefted his father over his shoulder and tucked him into the nearest podcar. “Send me a message when you get home, Dad,” he said, words less slurred than they had been an hour ago, the alcohol sifting out of his system and bringing him back to unwanted sobriety.

“Son,” his father grasped at his suit sleeves, grinning lopsidedly up at him. “Before I forget, there’s another thing next week that I- I need-”

God, he really didn’t want to hear the end of that sentence. “No,” Finn groaned, shaking his father’s hands off and helping him get his legs into the pod. “I came today, and that was already enough.”

“You nee- need to be there,” his father slurred, “I- I promised some people I’d show them my *handsome-*”

“You can’t just promise things for me, Dad!” Finn barked. He was sobering up, he was sure of it, but he couldn’t stop the blood rushing to his face and the pounding in his head. God, it wouldn’t stop. “Go home. I’ll talk to you later.”

He closed the podcar door before his father could say another word, watched as his old man gazed at him wide-eyed before fluttering his eyes closed, nodding off without so much as a reaction to Finn’s outburst. Watched as the podcar set off on its path, taking his father farther and farther away from him.

A whistle rang through the wind, and Finn turned around in his awkward squatting position on the sidewalk. Jake stared back at him, a little redder than he had been earlier and a little more disheveled, too. “Guess you’ve got your own issues, too.”

“Fuck off,” Finn retorted, but he could feel the dejection in his throat. He sat fully on the curb of the sidewalk, back turned away from the man to avoid conversation. The footsteps drawing nearer told him that he didn’t get the message.

“I thought you’d like doing your father’s bidding,” Jake said. “Thought these kinds of events were up your alley.”

The man sat down next to Finn, offering what he recognized as a different brand of nicotine gum. It must be hard to get the good stuff even as a government worker, huh. He took the offer impulsively. “Not when it’s to feed politicians’ egos,” he responded, slowly unwrapping the gum before placing it into his mouth, rolling it up into a ball with his tongue, over, then under, then over again. “Though I’m pretty good at it, I won’t lie.”

“Why do you even work with Roots?” Jake scoffed. “When you’re good at this and your father is a hotshot that has all the ins with the mayor and gets you a fancy little job where you don’t have to care about anyone but yourself.”

“Ins with the mayor? Are you really using that as an insult right now, as a government official?”

Jake scrunched his face in distress — or so it seemed, but in a blink of an eye Finn watched it simmer into a look of discomfort. “You don’t know who I am, or why I have that job.”

“And you don’t know shit about me, either,” Finn deadpanned. If he didn’t hate the guy next to him, he’d ask him if he could get an in on the scarce Emovia supply, or on something, anything, that would make him feel less. The nicotine peace offering was doing little to iron out his creases. “So maybe don’t say shit when you don’t know what I can and can’t control.”

“Whatever,” Jake said after a few seconds, but Finn could tell that the words were sanded down at the edges now. The realization struck that the past few conversations they had were so brittle because of him and his front, so no wonder Jake also saw him as a misogynistic nepo baby doing volunteer work like a hobby. He winced to himself as he replayed the teenage tantrum he lashed out at this near-stranger.

“And you?” he prompted. “Why do you even do what you do? What are you trying to do with her?”

Jake turned his head and stared at him, eyes wide. Fuck. That’s not what he meant to say. It must be programmed into his system to be the most embarrassing carnal version of himself whenever he was around this man.

To his surprise, he was met with silence rather than a scathing remark. A podcar whirred closer in the distance, and the two both instinctively brought their feet closer into the pavement. “Trying to do what you said,” Jake said finally, a much softer cadence lining his voice. Finn blinked. “Do what we always do. Replant. Rebuild. I don’t know how many times we can do this, though.” He picked up a stone from the ground and started to fiddle with it. “How many times I can do this.”

It had been three months since they had that conversation in the car, and it wasn’t a particularly fond memory. Finn wondered how Jake still remembered that, how he was able to take that tussle and turn it into something aspirational. “Yeah,” Finn agreed. He knew Shavir had thought the same thing about their relationship; that’s why she ended up leaving him for good.

Jake tilted his hand toward Finn again, the rock balanced in the middle of his palm. Another peace offering. Finn adjusted his position to turn more toward the other man, dragging his fingers along the surface of the rock. It was smooth in some spots, airy and coarse in others. The lamppost above them flickered against its half-shiny half-matte surface.

“I don’t know what she sees in you,” Finn muttered bluntly, eliciting a short laugh from Jake that filled Finn with more warm than the wine and nicotine had. “You suck.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Jake exhaled, and Finn drew his hand away. “What she sees in you or me.”

It didn’t make sense, but it was the alcohol, or the stupid event, or a myriad of other things. He put his hands on either side of Jake’s face and scanned his expression, scouring for an answer. What did anyone like about Jake? What did this man give that he couldn’t? Weren’t they two sides of the same coin — two people with too much power and yet with no power at all?

“I don’t know,” he said again. They were close enough that he could feel the warmth of his own breath between them.

“Me neither,” Jake responded again. His gaze was intense, intent.

It was the alcohol. It was the stupid event. It was a myriad of things. He leaned in and pressed their lips together, firmly, to see if he could find the answers he was looking for there. The other man pressed back.

This was maybe the top two stupidest things he’d ever done. He wasn’t thinking straight, he was angry, but he didn’t stop, he couldn’t pull away. Jake had placed his rock-holding hand on Finn’s thigh, the rugged corners digging into his skin. Finn grabbed at Jake’s blazer and pulled tightly on it, not wanting to lose in their inglorious show of dominance. What could Jake give that he couldn’t? He tugged him closer.

“What the fuck?” Jake spat, and suddenly Finn was being pushed away, the force of Jake’s arms so hard that he nearly slammed his back into the sidewalk. “Oh god. This didn’t happen.”

Finn stared blankly into the street in front of them. “Fuck,” he said.

“Fuck,” Jake repeated, standing up and dusting himself off furiously, as if trying to rid of any trace of Finn as he could. “This didn’t happen, okay? I cannot fucking believe you.” The last part sounded like it was more to himself, but it still punched at Finn’s gut. “Good night.”

For the third time that day, he watched as someone walked away from him, leaving him stranded with the mess he was that he didn’t know how to untangle. What had he just done? What did that answer for him? What the fuck did he even want to figure out from that? And why did people keep walking away from him to figure it out on his own?

Finn gazed on into the distance until he could no longer hear the man’s footsteps echoing off the walls. The aftertaste of the wine was rising in his throat. All of his limbs felt like jello. He leaned back onto the sidewalk and splayed himself out on the street like a run-over animal, closed his eyes so all he could see was the static dancing on his eyelids. He was tired, he thought. He was so, so tired.

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> **Author ending notes:** hahahaha. hope u enjoyed this absolute monstrosity i was truly toiling over finn and jake here. u know their relationships wouldnt be so cut and dry it would have so much angst and push and pull and tensionnnn gay tension!! what are then intentions!! do they actually like each other or are they bound by something more!! pls lmk what u thought i'd love to know ur thoughts on them theyre my favorite fragile pairing maybe besides marla and jake.. jake u player
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