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 Footnote the Third oOo oOo
"You look like hell," Delia says when he turns up at the pub not an hour later. He called her, asked for this. He needs a friend right now, and he's down to one.
She offers to buy him a whiskey but he declines. He can't trust himself. Not with the horrid downward spiral his life has taken this day.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks.
"Nothing to tell," he says.
"It's Dominic, isn't it?"
He looks up at her, startled. Is he that obvious?
"You're upset, Eric. You don't get upset about cases, or about people you don't know and care about. As I'm fine, that leaves him." She looks at him steadily. "Is he all right?"
"No," Finch bites, but backs off. "But in the sense you're talking about, he's fine."
"Then what—"
"Inspector Stone did something incredibly stupid," he says, gritting it between his teeth.
She arches an eyebrow at him. "Unforgivably stupid, Eric?"
He says nothing, because he doesn't know. He can't imagine forgiving this, but he also knows that after the speed with which everything has come to light he's not in the most rational of moods. It's possible that, given time, this won't seem so bad.
Delia takes his silence as confirmation. "Reportably stupid?" she asks, her voice and her expression sharpened. She seems detached, suddenly, and he understands how easily she can slip into the persona of a coroner. She can shut herself off.
And there's the choice to make. Delia is a better Party member than he ever has been, despite her occasional jabs in his company, and she would report. If he tells her, he won't have to say a thing, and it will all be taken care of. He again conjures the image of Stone behind some building in a bad part of town, handsome face lax and dark eyes staring. He forces himself to rewind that imagining, picturing the bagging, and then the bag being ripped off in that alley; the shove that knocks Stone against the wall; his confusion and then his realization as he looks up and sees the gun. The Finger will ask him if he wants to say anything, perhaps give up the names of fellow homosexuals in the Force. He'll tell them to piss off. He knows what's coming anyway, and understands how this works well enough to know that he won't stop it. So he'll get in his spot of defiance, and then the gun will come up. Will he panic at that moment? Or will he stare down death? It doesn't matter. The gun goes off. The end. Stone will hit the ground, twitching, but the two shots to the heart will still him.
And Finch feels nauseous. Before he can stop himself he blurts out, "No, it's nothing like that. Just Stone being an exceptional prat and me having to deal with the fallout."
He's lied. Delia must know he's lied. He's not good at it around people he likes, and she's an excellent judge of character. He looks at her, trying to gauge her reaction. Would she report Stone even so? What can Finch do if that happens?
She shakes her head. "Don't let this get out of hand, Eric. The lads look to you to keep things running smoothly in CID, and if the two of you are at odds the whole unit will suffer."
"It won't go that far. We can work together. We just might not be spending a lot of off-hours together for a time."
Delia watches him, perceiving more than she ought, but that's common. Funny how it's never made him uncomfortable before. Then again, he's never had anything to hide before.