Title: Material Culture
Author: Nemo the Everbeing
Rating: PG for this chapter, will rise later
Summary: Every object has significance. The goal of study is to determine what it is. (Finch/Dominic)
Disclaimer: 'V for Vendetta' belongs to Alan Moore and David Lloyd. The theatrical version of the story belongs to Warner Brothers, the Wachowski brothers, and possibly a few other brothers. I don't own any of it, am not a brother, and write this solely for my own pleasure.
oOo oOo A Clean Blotter oOo oOo
The super had informed DI Eric Finch that he would be getting a junior partner newly transferred from information crimes, and the desk appeared before he arrived at work the next day. It felt like an intruder in his office, sitting there with the barest provisions needed by any competent officer of the law: a new computer, two monitors, a lamp, and a blotter. It was like someone has set up a mirror image of his own workspace without any of the hard work or accomplishment.
He was disgusted by the unseemly speed of the whole affair. Clearly the newly made DS Dominic Stone was a political favorite, and someone was lumping him with Finch to get him through the ranks and on to a bureaucratic job as soon as possible.
oOo oOo oOo oOo
Finch is well aware from the off that Stone's going to be trouble. After years of quietly moving up the ranks to detective inspector, he's learned to spot party favorites, politicians in disguise, and useless bullyboys. And Lord, but there are a lot of them anymore. He's looked into Stone's background of course. Couldn't help being political, that one. He had it spoon-fed from birth, though it doesn't make Finch feel any more charitable toward the lad. Circumstances of birth are something they all have to manage for good or ill. It hasn't been easy being Irish in the modern political climate. When people aren't thinking he must be a terrorist they think he's a Catholic. Finch isn't certain which gets a worse reaction.
But Finch has worked his arse off to overcome any indication that he might show 'Irish' tendencies. He tells himself it's not because of shame, just prudence. A good copper should recognize his biases and lay them aside for his career. He has, but he can't expect some political hire riding on his father's party status to do the same. And that makes Stone worse than useless.
One look is all it takes for his suspicions to feel vindicated. Stone's young and almost ridiculously handsome. The ladies in the secretarial pool are all aflutter when he comes in, and Finch can see them peeking around the door into the CID offices. Finch thinks Stone looks twelve years old; the tailored suit and the shellacked hair not helping much. Nothing short of a bag over his head would have done.
Stone comes off like some great puppy, tripping over his own feet to get on with the business of being a copper, greeting his new coworkers with a grin and a personable attitude that Finch has never quite mastered. Stone will be one of the lads in no time. Finch, long since past eager and well into world-weary, rolls his eyes and silently wishes Stone on anyone but him. There are senior officers aplenty who would volunteer to take such a moldable young man under their wing. Finch prefers the people he work with to have minds of their own. One should understand dissent, because if one can't understand another point of view motive is impossible to determine. Without motive, all you have is the evidence to go off, and that makes you half a copper. If you're skilled and lucky. Finch wonders if Stone will even be that much.
It's not that Finch is a radical. He understood the way the wind was blowing all those years ago. When it became an unspoken rule that to keep your job you joined the Party, Finch joined the Party. He never does anything that directly contradicts any of the Articles of Allegiance. His will never be a verbose sort of objection to the status quo, certainly never enough to find himself on the receiving end of a black bag. The politicians don't know what to do with men like Finch—his own Super certainly never has—and so he's given the worst cases and the least resources in some vain hope that he'll be shot and save everyone the trouble. More the fool the Super. Men like Finch aren't about to be so incautious as to get shot.
A desire for caution is another reason not to want some great puppy of a junior partner who's probably still carrying about romantic notions of heroism. Romance and heroism are dead in modern society. They gave over to the exact qualities that keep Finch alive and working: distrust and caution. Sometimes, at his worst, Finch wonders if perhaps he should be thankful. It was only in this environment that he flourished as a copper. If things were easier he might have never been the rising star he became. It's an unsettling notion.
The door to his office rattles, startling him from his reverie. He looks up. Stone's finally made his way through his throng of admirers. He smells faintly of cheap aftershave.
"Detective Inspector Finch?" he asks. His voice is harsher than expected, enough so that Finch wonders if he doesn't indulge in black market cigarettes. His accent confirms the background check Finch did: Dominic Stone is a child of the Reclamation. He was saved by the Party, he and his family, from poverty. His father was given one of the jobs taken when the immigrants were carted off.
"Who wants to know?" Finch asks. His own voice sounds raspy to his ears, due in his case to scotch rather than any less than legal vice.
Stone's expression sharpens into something questioning, and for an instant Finch thinks he sees something behind the good looks: an insatiable hunger to know and understand. Then it's gone, and the pleasant mask is back. Stone steps forward, shifts the small box of his personal affects against his side, and extends his hand across both their desks. It's a very small box. "Detective Sergeant Dominic Stone," he says. "I thought the Super told you about me."
"He mentioned you," Finch says. He gives the hand, still extended, and then its owner one very long, very thorough look. Stone wilts under the scrutiny a bit, then grits his teeth and holds his hand forward with even more determination. There's a glint in his eye that says he won't be driven off that easily.
"Last three weeks here," Finch says, "and then I'll either shake your hand, or the Super will send you to someone better suited to your particular circumstances." He turns back to his computer and pretends to focus on the job. He watches Stone's reaction out of the corner of his eye.
Stone scrutinizes him, his dark eyes intent again, and the mask doesn't come up while he thinks himself unobserved. Finch wonders what Stone sees. A tired man with messy hair and a face losing the battle against gravity? A cop who should be put out to pasture in the next few years? An insomniac? An Irishman?
And then Stone says, "The Super didn't request this partnership, Sir. I did."
Finch refuses to acknowledge that further, but he stops typing. At last he asks, "Why?"
Stone sounds painfully earnest. "Because you're the best, Sir. Everyone says so. They say you're slated to be the next chief inspector."
"But not the next super," Finch says, throwing out the bait to see how Stone reacts.
"I don't want the next super," Stone says. "I want someone interested in cases, not advancement."
Finch scoffs. "This from a son of the Reclamation?"
He glances up to see Stone standing there, still clutching his box and looking determined and worried all at a time. He's forgotten his pleasant mask at that, Finch thinks, and enjoys his small victory.
"You read up on me," Stone says.
"Of course I did."
Stone puts his box down on the desk and crosses his arms over his chest. "Look, I'm a Party member, all right? Wouldn't be here if I wasn't, but politics aren't in it for me. I just want to do well at my work, and what I want to do—what I trained to do was to be a copper. And to do well I need to work with the best. I need to work with you."
Finch has never had a high tolerance for bullshit. "You weren't hired on because you were good, or even expected to be so. You were hired to meet the Reclamation quota. You were hired so that young men who show real talent but have no Party status can get jobs without Creedy and his Fingermen black bagging the lot of us. You were hired for reasons that were absolutely political, so don't come it the good copper with me." It's fact, as far as he's concerned. More than that, it's a test. Some of what he's said is incendiary and could get him in some trouble if it's leaked. Stone's the only one who knows what he's said, and Finch is more than willing to give him the chance to tell the Super. He'll even leave him alone long enough for a clear shot at it.
He rises and brushes past Stone on his way to the door. Over his shoulder he says, "So I'll see you in three weeks. Then we can see if you have the makings of a good copper."
He goes to the cafeteria, and comes back two hours later to find that Stone has moved his things into the empty desk. He has no personal affects. He's left the screensaver on his dual monitors in its basic insignia; he has no photographs or knickknacks. He has a drawer full of office supplies and two others left empty for case files. He has small notebooks. He's set a tray on top of his desk for the sake of organization. He might as well have not put anything there, for all that the desk still feels empty. Finch supposes it's a herald of things to come, because Stone is made of cardboard, void of real purpose or meaning. He sits across from Finch watching and waiting, but with no spark to recommend him, no extraordinary wit or intelligence. Just his good looks and his Party status, and a clean blotter.
