Title: Material Culture
Author: Nemo the Everbeing
Rating: PG-13 for things falling apart.
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 Chapter 7: Paper Tiger oOo oOo
So they existed, constantly in one another's periphery, moving in and out of close contact. Dominic's smiles changed from eager to knowing, and the lines around his eyes deepened. When they were leaning over case notes together and the sides of their hands would touch, Dominic would look at Finch like he was the whole world.
Finch attributed it to the strength of their partnership. He felt something similar: people in the modern world seemed to be shadows, and Finch often wondered if he could walk straight through them. Dominic wasn't a shadow, and that might make him the whole world too.
After five years working together Dominic came into the office with a tiger made of folded paper. He didn't say anything, but he set it on the corner of his desk looking at him, gave Finch a smile, and then got back to work.
oOo oOo oOo oOo
It's a gray day in October, and Finch can't find Dominic. He came in to work, even spent several hours sitting across from Finch, but now he's not their office, nor in the main CID office, nor in the bathroom. No one else seems to know where he's got to, either. They're in the middle of a massive smuggling case, Finch needs a fresh set of eyes to go over the scene of crime reports, and Dominic's gone and disappeared. It's not like him to bugger off without telling anyone, and Finch feels a trickle of worry. It's been years since they thought Dominic might get bagged, but there are moments when Finch worries things are not so settled as he would hope. He feels ill when he thinks of Fingermen grabbing Dominic from behind, whisking that black bag over his head, and dragging him away past even Finch's ability to find.
Finch is already in a sour mood. He hates the smuggling cases. Give him a good murder any day: something that won't tax his moral compass. His lads don't work for the Ministry of Objectionable Materials, and he dislikes when they're treated as such. Does anyone really care about butter smugglers?
As Finch's patience is running painfully thin and he's imagining all the worst scenarios, and then wondering whether or not he'd get bagged himself for knocking Creedy on his smug arse, Constable Andrews gestures vaguely behind him and said, "I think he's in evidence, Sir. Sorting through the boxes, like, to see if there's a lead. Been there hours, he has. Most boring job ever, you ask me, but he seems well enough with it."
Of all the bollocksed-up . . . Dominic should know better than to sort evidence from a smuggling case without other officers present. If he isn't careful, the MOM and the Finger will come down on him for possession, and that'll be all the excuse Creedy needs. He can't imagine why Dominic wouldn't ask for his help in the first place. He's not come it the Chief Inspector during cases, after all. He'd be more than willing to sort.
He knocks his way through the doors into the evidence room and finds exactly what he expected. There are stacks of homemade butter pats, each set down outside its crate after being looked at for some sort of identification. Then there are tiny pots of honey with the same treatment. If Dominic so much as tasted the evidence, Finch will to kill him.
He wades around the tall shelves that separate their evidence room into narrow rows. He sees more opened boxes and more evidence in neat piles, but still no Dominic. Row after row, box after box. The MOM is going to throw a mad fit when they realize the boxes have been opened.
And then, near to the corner of the room, tucked away where no one is likely to see, Finch sees the one thing he isn't prepared to see. Another box, yes, its contents spilled out over the floor, but this box isn't filled with food. There are photographs spread about in little stacks, none of which are as carefully ordered as the stacks of butter or honey. Rather, Finch realizes with a jolt, they are all of them pictures of semi-clad to naked men having it off with one another, stacked quickly and without finesse.
And Dominic is kneeling in the heart of this pornographic hurricane. He probably sorted through one at a time, but he isn't sorting now. Finch steps into the mouth of the aisle to see his junior partner on his knees, his lip caught between his teeth, two bright spots of color on his otherwise pale cheeks, peering intently at the image of some man rogering another man over a desk, a ceramic tiger superimposing itself on the smooth metal corner in the foreground.
Finch freezes. Dominic's expression isn't one of dispassionate observation, but rather one trapped in a bubble of realization and longing. He remembers his interrogation instructor at Academy telling him that all it takes to crack a suspect is a single unguarded moment. And Finch has just caught Dominic in his.
Every moment of their relationship plays itself back in Finch's head, skewed and showing itself in a whole new light. All the casual touches; the rare moments when their fingers and reached out and grasped at one another for support and encouragement; all the nights drinking and sorting cases, and falling asleep on the settee. The smile Dominic gave him when Finch accidentally woke him in the middle of the night. The look on his face when Finch took his hand the first time. The drunken half-cuddles. Finch always felt that he missed something in those looks of Dominic's, some ingredient to them he couldn't identify.
Now he knows. Everything slots itself so neatly into place with that last clue, like the turning point in any good case. Funny how Finch doesn't feel victorious. He tries to wrap his brain about what's happened.
Dominic has gone and fallen in love with him. And Finch should have known years ago.
He steps back, some vague thought of putting distance between them while he works out how to handle this situation in his mind. He stumbles against one of the stacks, and the evidence rattles on its shelves. Dominic falls backward in an inelegant sprawl with his elbows supporting him in the middle of the deluge. His tie is askew, his eyes are wide and dilated, and there's an ever-so-slight bulge in his trousers. He looks pornographic himself. Finch is slapped with a moment of vertigo as his mind follows that notion to its logical conclusion.
Dominic sees him. "Sir!" Dominic gasps, then looks about him. Finally, his eyes drag their way back up. Finch can see to the unguarded heart of the man in that moment, and every inch of him seems terrified and horribly hopeful. His hand starts to extend toward Finch, only to be pulled back when he realizes what he's doing. "Oh, Christ. Sir, it's not how it looks. I wasn't—that is to say I didn't—I was looking at the backgrounds! I thought—I thought there might be some indication of where they were shot." He looks about himself again, and down at himself, and then scrambles into a tighter huddle. He won't meet Finch's eye, and Finch remembers a moment when Dominic complained that guilty people ought to at least try not to be so obvious about it.
"Are you . . . are you going to report me, Sir?" Dominic's voice is small and shattered. They both know that Dominic's career, not to mention his life, is in Finch's hands. There's more than enough evidence here to convict without trial. Looking for evidence he might have been, but he got caught up, and then he got caught. Creedy will jump at this. Dominic won't survive more than two hours after a report, and they'll find him sprawled in that untidy heap the suddenly dead always make behind some nondescript building with the Finger's calling card sitting on his chilled body. There will be a neat hole in his head and a not so nice exit out the back that will have splashed his brains all over the brick. He'll also have two clean shots to the heart, because the Finger is thorough and Creedy does love a spot of irony.
Finch manages to think all these things with the dispassion of long experience, although that might be the shock at work. He doesn't know himself if he intends to report Dominic. It's one thing to defend him for doing his job, but this is unrelated to work. He should, by rights, shop Dominic to the Finger. It would be easier. He wouldn't have to deal with the awkwardness and the knowledge that the past three years have been something very different for the two of them. More than that, it's his duty as the Chief Inspector to keep this sort of thing out of his ranks. Creedy could bag all the lads if he thinks they've been contaminated.
Dominic must have read all this in his expression, because he looks away with a jerk. He doesn't say anything, but his fists clench white. Finch turns on his heel and leaves. He checks out with the desk sergeant and saying he's going to try a new perspective on the case, and then he goes back to his flat. Once there he slaps the file down on the coffee table and goes about the business of taking his sofa out to the curb. He sits it there, and half-wishes he could leave the memories with it. He goes back inside, pours himself two fingers of whiskey, and then takes both glass and bottle to his chair. The room looks barren without the sofa, and the case file seems to blur in front of him.
He hears a car stop outside. He looks up, not altogether surprised to see Dominic at his curb. He's staring at the sofa, his mouth hanging open and his skin blanched a ghastly white. For a moment Finch wonders if he'll break down in the street, but Dominic sets his jaw, squares his shoulders and makes his way to the door instead.
Finch opens it when he knocks. Dominic lifts his chin, and the angle almost covered the suspicious moisture in his eyes. "If you're going to shop me, at least tell me so I can call my parents. I don't want them wondering. Not like my aunt and uncle."
Finch isn't feeling charitable. "And if I don't think you deserve the courtesy?"
Dominic's voice is strong in his anger. "For God's sake, Eric—"
Finch jabs a finger in Stone's direction. "Don't you dare call me that. It's 'Sir' to you, Inspector."
Finch knows the expression on Stone's face. It's the same one he wore when he got shot. He flushes red for a second, and then goes quite white again. His voice is nothing more than a whisper. "I'm still me. I haven't changed just because you found this out. I thought we were friends. I thought I could trust you."
"Funny, I thought the same of you."
"What was I supposed to do? Tell you? Yeah, and say what? 'Interesting case, Eric. Oh, by the by, I know it's highly illegal and could destroy both our careers, not to mention our lives, but I think I might fancy you'? That would have gone over well."
"I told you not to call me that," Finch says.
Stone seems to scarcely hear him. "And so I come over here, ready to apologize and assure you that I won't do anything about it, nor have I ever done, only to find that you're already scrubbing the place of me. What's next? Breaking every dish I ever used? Bleaching the bathroom?"
"I have a career to watch out for!" Finch thunders back, and immediately feels like a hypocrite. How many times has he mocked and derided the men who would say such things? How many times has he accused them of being the worst sort of political officer?
Finch can see Stone gather his dignity and pride about him. "I guess I'll leave you to it, then, Sir." He pulls a photo from his coat pocket and drops it on Finch's coffee table.
Finch hesitates, and then picks up the photograph. Two men in bed. Nothing explicit there, but for their expressions and the position of their bodies. Over the shoulder of the man on top there's a window, and through it he can see the ruins of a factory.
"I think it's outside quarantine," Stone says, his tone cold and professional. Finch has only ever heard him try that voice on Creedy.
It's a good detail spotted, Finch has to admit. Not in London, he thinks. Perhaps Cardiff or one of the other broken cities. "I'll run this down," he says, "see if I can't get a match to a location after I've cropped it down to just the window."
Stone is awkward figure in a rumpled suit framed against his now barren front room. He shoves his hands into his pockets and stares at his feet. "I guess that's me off, then," he says. "I know you don't think I deserve it, but please do give me an hour before you report me. I've got to think of a gentle way to break this to my da." Finch supposes he's trying to sound gruff and unaffected, but his voice breaks on the last word and ruins the illusion. There's a part of Finch that wants to reach out and reassure Dominic that everything will be fine, but it won't be and there's no use lying. Stone would know.
Stone turns away abruptly, and Finch doesn't have to be a detective to know what he's trying to cover. Again something in him wrenches and his palms itch, and again he stomps both impulses down. This is why he doesn't do friendship. It costs too much anymore.
"Don't call. I'm not reporting you," Finch says. He didn't know himself until that moment.
Stone turns to look at him, then turns away just as quickly, but not soon enough that Finch didn't have a perfect snapshot in his head of Stone's eyes bright with moisture. "I see," Stone says. "You'll . . . you'll let me know what this is going to cost me, then, Sir."
Finch's eyes narrow. "You think I'm blackmailing you?" Doesn't Stone know him well enough to know that he doesn't go in for that sort of thing?
"Honestly, Sir, I've no idea what you're doing. All I do know is that when we were in evidence, I knew you were going to shop me. And now out of nowhere you say you won't. The only way it makes sense is if you think you're likely to get something better out of keeping me alive. I'd rather like to know up front, Sir. So I can tell you whether you should save yourself the effort."
It's the defiance that surprises Finch. The fear is expected, the defeat and the sorrow are frankly mutual, but that cold sense that there are limits beyond which Stone would prefer his brains to adorn London brick is a painful reminder of why Finch started to like him in the first place. More than that, it makes it impossible to see him as nothing more than a deviant and a criminal. Stone's words are in his head: 'it's still me'.
And it is, God help them.
"Be at the office. Do your job. Do nothing more than your job," he said. "And never bring this up again."
Stone looks at him for a long minute, and somehow this simple, easy demand makes him look even more dejected. He gives Finch a sharp nod and leaves, his face lit in profile from the streetlamp outside. It's enough to see the sheen of water in his eyes and the miserable set of his mouth. His breathing is steady.