Title: To Do His Part (2/6)
Author: Master F&M
Fandom: Law and Order: SVU
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Fin has left SVU and is back in Narcotics. Runs within the timeline of Infinity.
Disclaimer: Law and Order: SVU and all its characters belong to Dick Wolf. I just get to play with them
Author's Note: Sam is a character of my own creation. She does not exist on the show.
Feedback: Please give some. For entertainment purposes only.
CHAPTER 2
Fin entered the penthouse to the sound of loud singing coming from the den. He smiled as he hung up his jacket. He loved coming home to a noisy family. He still so clearly remembered the nights he dreaded leaving work just to have to go home to his far too quiet and lonely apartment.
He made out the voices of his four boys, but couldn't tell what they were saying. Singing off-key and in different rhythms, they were obviously trying to drown each other out as well by singing at the top of their voices. They were also not all performing the same song. Fin didn't hear Sam, but wondered how she could possibly stand it.
Folding his arms across his chest, he leaned against the doorframe leading into the den to listen some more. He knew his boys could be a handful. It seems that they had inherited the same penchant for getting into trouble that he'd had when he was a kid. Nothing serious; just the kind of mischief that could make any sane woman living with five males lose her composure every now and again. He was proud of his sons, though. They were all good boys– even if they did gang up on their mother every once in a while.
The singing came to an end, and Fin could hear Munch laughing in appreciation of their efforts.
"I don't know about the four of you," he was saying, "but I think that was truly inspired. A beautiful melange of cultural tributes parleyed into a harmonious blending of holiday spirit. Well done, my young friends. Well done."
Fin peeked into the room and saw Munch sitting in a chair, holding court in the middle of the group. Johnathon, who at nine was already taller than the ten-year-old twins Calvin and Corey, was perched on the armrest to his left. Deon, eight, sat on his right. The twins, the more hyperactive of the lot, were waltzing around the room with imaginary partners. Fin chuckled. Sam would be happy to know that her dance lessons were sticking.
"Shall we take it from the top?" Munch addressed his charges. "Except this time, Deonwhy don't you sing 'Kwanzaa's Here'? Johnny, my boy, you give ol' 'Jingle Bells' a whirl, and the dancing fools over there can put their own personal spin on 'The Dreidel Song.'" The twins laughed and came over to stand in front of him. Munch held up his hands.
"Ready? And a one, and a two and . . . "
Fin watched Munch sit back with a satisfied smile as the quartet let loose with a cacophony of sounds. Fin wasn't sure what Munch was getting out of creating such a din, but he certainly appeared to be enjoying himself. He waited a few more minutes before he entered the room.
"What's with all the racket?"
The boys surrounded their father and finished their songs with a flourish before dissolving into giggles. Fin shook his head at them.
"You see, boys?" Munch smirked at his old partner. "Your father needs to learn to appreciate the diversity of your cultures as much as we do."
"Yeah, Dad, get with it." Corey grinned and spread his arms out to encompass the room. "We're only trying to get in touch with our heritage. There's so much of it, you know."
Fin laughed. He was very glad for the fact that his kids had several cultural roots in their background. He always thought that it made for a more tolerant person. The holidays in the Tutuola home stretched on for weeks as they celebrated Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa.
"Yeah, well, that's 'cause you're a bunch of mutts."
Corey dropped his jaw, then turned to his twin. "Did he just call us mutts?" He turned to his other two brothers.
"I think he just called us mutts. You know, like, bow wow?" All four turned to glare at their father.
Fin began a slow, backward retreat as they advanced on him. He faked a twist to the right, then turned left, but he never stood a chance. Soon he was on the floor at the bottom of a pile of adolescent indignation, with each of his boys twisting one of his limbs and demanding that he yell 'uncle!'. Munch joined in the fray by encouraging them to twist harder and advising them to make him yell 'Uncle Munch!' instead. Fin laughed until his sides hurt.
Sam came into the room to see what all the commotion was about. Her heart swelled at the sight of her husband on the floor wrestling with their sons. She stood and watched them for a little while, preserving the image in her mind's eye, before announcing that dinner was ready. Fin got up, slightly out of breath, and dusted himself off.
"Hey, baby."
Sam smiled at him. "Hey, yourself."
Fin held her in a light embrace and kissed her to a chorus of 'Aw, man!', 'Eww!' and 'Yuck!'.
Fin smiled back at his sons, then quickly kissed her again. He never held back displaying the affection he felt for their mother in front of them. He, in fact, wanted them to see it. He wanted them to know how they should treat the person they loved most in the world.
"Don't worry guys," Munch never missed an opportunity to take their side over Fin's. "You'll get used to it."
He nodded his head toward Fin and Sam, then rolled his eyes. "Eventually."
"No way,PopPop," Johnathon walked away shaking his head. "That is just way too gross."
Fin laughed. "Let's see how you feel in a couple of years. For now, though, just go get washed up."
The boys headed off to the bathroom while Munch gathered up his things to go. It always did his heart good to spend an afternoon here with Sam and the boys.
Now that they were getting older, she was occasionally taking on assignments that she could pretty much work from her office at home. The boys being Tutuolas, however, required that someone needed to keep an eye on them to ensure that they didn't completely wreck the place while she was working. That's where he came in. A few days a week, while Tori was at her gallery, Papa Munch kept the boys busy while Sam toiled away in her office.
John hadn't been comfortable with being referred to as the boys' grandfather. Even though he hated the way his brother treated Sam, John still didn't want to usurp his role as the grandfather to her children. After some debate, he and Sam had decided on Papa Munch as an appropriate title instead. Over the years, however, it had mutated so that now he was called everything from Papa Munch, to Papa Bear, to PopPop. He didn't mind, though. It all meant the same thing to him: he was loved. And after seven years of retirement, it felt good to be needed again. Munch liked to think the boys were helping to keep him young. It also didn't hurt that it irked Fin that they were beginning to pick up some of his habits.
"Are you sure you can't stay for dinner, Uncle John?"
"Sorry, Princess. Tori and I are having a romantic dinner out tonight." He gave her a kiss on the cheek on the way to the door, before turning to Fin.
"And if I were you, I'd start worrying. Those boys had you pinned so tight you couldn't move."
"I was at the bottom of a dog pile."
"Dog pile More like puppy pile, wasn't it?" He chuckled at his own joke as he left.
"I kill myself. I slay me."
Fin shook his head as he closed the door, then walked Sam into the dining room. It was good to be sitting down to dinner together. He liked being able to look around the table and see his kids' happy faces. Their happy and safe faces. It helped to reinforce his decision to have gone back to Narcotics. He needed to keep them that way. Them and a whole lot of others like them. Even if it did keep him away from the dinner table a few nights a week.
Sam watched Fin as he talked and joked around with the boys as they ate. Ten years. Their anniversary was coming up, and she found it amazing that she still felt a thrill whenever he smiled.
"So what kind of trouble did you all get into today?"
Fin had asked the question as a joke, but the table went quiet as the boys suddenly decided they were still very hungry and began shoveling food into their mouths. Fin glanced at each of them, then looked at Sam. She had wanted to wait until he'd had a chance to relax before giving him the news, but guessed now was as good a time as any.
"Calvin and Corey tried to kill Deon today." She hated referring to them as 'the twins'. She wanted each of her boys to be individuals; each with their own place in the family.
Fin slowly put down his knife and fork. "What?"
"Yup." Sam was taking it lightly now, but at the time of the incident, she had been apoplectic.
"Before Uncle Munch came over, I sent the boys to their rooms to do some reading. But instead of doing that, they decided to hook a rope over the ceiling fan to see if the motor was strong enough to spin Deon around the room while he was wearing his Superman cape. You know, so he could fly?" She closed her eyes at the thought.
"Well, it wasn't strong enough, and the whole thing nearly collapsed on top of him."
It took every ounce of self-control Fin ever possessed to not laugh at the image of his youngest son spinning around the room wearing a cape. He took a moment and rubbed his hand across his forehead before looking at them.
"Why did you do that?"
Calvin shrugged. "Like Mom said, we wanted to see if we could make him fly."
Fin looked over at Johnathon. He considered him to be the most levelheaded of the group. "And what were you doing during all of this?"
"Watching."
"Watching? And you didn't think to stop them?"
Corey answered for him. "He was the one who gave us the idea to use Deon." Fin looked from one to the other. He turned back to Johnathon who shrugged.
"They wanted to use a bowling ball." Fin sat back.
"All right. Go to your rooms. No. Go to Deon's room and wait for me there." He watched the boys get up and file out of the room. Sam started to clear the table.
"You really need to talk to them."
"I know. I am."
"Yes, but maybe this time you could do it without sounding so proud of them." Fin laughed.
"I don't do that."
"No? Well, how about the time they threw baseballs up at the ceiling while the fan was on because they wanted to see if it could get a hit? You asked what its batting average was. Or the time they sprayed hair spray on the dust bunnies they'd been collecting then ran over them with roller blades because Johnathon saw on the Discovery channel that they might ignite . . . and it worked?"
"Come on now, you gotta admit that that was kinda cool."
"Fin."
"Alright, alright." Still chuckling a little, Fin hugged her to him. "I'll talk to them. For real. But, baby, they're boys. They're gonna do some of this kind of stuff."
"I know that. But shouldn't it be the exception instead of the norm?"
Fin looked at his wife and saw the worry in her eyes. He, instead, preferred to see the laughter that was usually there. Tucking a loose curl back behind her ear, he hugged her again.
"I'll get through to them."
"Thank you." She kissed him. "It was a nice surprise having you home for dinner tonight. I wasn't expecting it."
She turned and started toward the kitchen with the dishes. Fin headed for Deon's room, then stopped. He turned to look at Sam.
"You know that I wanna be here, though, right? That I try to be?" Sam turned to answer.
"I know, baby." She regretted her offhand remark. "I knew what I was getting into when I married a cop. I understand. The boys understand, too. We're proud of what you do."
Fin nodded, smiled, then went to talk to his boys. He stopped outside the room Deon shared with Johnathon to listen to what they were doing. The penthouse was big enough that, if they used the guest rooms, each of the boys could have their own rooms, but Fin had wanted them to share. He thought they'd learn to get along better that way.
He pushed the door open and stared into the room. The boys were all seated on one bed in a show of solidarity. Fin looked up to the ceiling at the remaining wires that once powered the ceiling fan. Sam had taken the rest of it down. He went in and shut the door behind him.
"You're gonna pay to have that fixed, so don't expect an allowance for a while." The boys looked down at the floor and said nothing. Fin sighed.
"Look. I know stuff like this seems like a fun idea at the time, but I know you know you shouldn't have done it. D could've really gotten hurt. So could the rest of you." He leaned against the door.
"You want that?" Each boy answered no. Fin's voice hardened.
"What really gets me is that your mom sent you in here to read. You disobeyed her, and for that, you're all grounded for a week. No TV, no video games. Y'all can practice your reading skills then." He looked at them to make sure they were paying attention.
"I ain't have to do any spanking in a while, but don't think I forgot how." The boys squirmed under the memory.
"And I think you owe your mother an apology. Don't do it now, 'cause I don't want her to think you're only doing it because I'm telling you to. But make sure you do it. You guys have been getting a little out of hand lately. She ain't happy about it, and if Mom ain't happy, . . . "
". . . ain't NOBODY happy." The boys joined Fin in finishing the Tutuolas' number one rule.
"That's right. Now get your rooms cleaned up and get ready for bed. I'll be back in a little while to check on you."
Fin left the room, deciding that when he came back, he'd tell them that Sam had insisted that Fin give them an hour of play time. They'd be grateful to her then, and would go out of their way to stay out of trouble. Fin grinned as he thought about it. For a while, anyway.