Creedy (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} agent_creedy) wrote in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} finchfic,@ 2006-05-13 17:11:00 |
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The Beginning of Things, finchfic "Start" Challenge
Rating: PG/Het
Warnings: OC Character Death
Disclaimer: I would just like to say that canon means absolutely nothing to me! Srsly tho, the Eric Finch who lives in my head is a miserable drunk who thinks too much and has an ex-wife who loves and hates him. That's about all I've got so far. So, this is about that.
Riley always hated cutting switches, but their father made him. Eric had done an evil thing, and that was the way of it. Eric had cut his fair share of switches for Riley, too. Darby had said their father was an evil man before she had gone away, Riley saw it more as a balance of good and evil, a case of some acts for thee and some acts for me.
Eric had very little opinion either way. Most of his young life he felt himself more a draft mule than a thinking creature, which suited him just fine. Riley had spent his time studying and crafting complex replies to simple questions, while Eric had grown up strong and simple, not daft but perhaps just a bit too genuine. Riley went off to college, and when Eric was old enough he bid their father adieu and joined Darby in the city.
It was easiest not to think much working in the civil service. Obedience was rewarded. Quickly he was promoted to a cozy little desk job putting seals on official papers and then putting those papers into envelopes, which a lovely girl named Ruth would come and collect at the end of each day. He blushed every time he saw her. Still single, Darby readily advised on the best ways to court women, and Eric soaked it up like a sponge. Ruth giggled and batted her eyelashes, and eventually agreed to a drink after work.
After that, it wasn’t long before he and Ruth were engaged, and as Ruth insisted on a white wedding, it wasn’t much longer before they were married. The civil life was as uneventful and content as could be, they neither suffered nor were ecstatic, and the city took care of most of their needs. Eric didn’t wander, and Ruth didn’t harass him.
One night very late there was a desperate pounding at the door. Eric threw on his robe and stepped into his slippers and rushed downstairs. When he opened the door, his sister fell into his arms. She had been leaning against the door. He picked her up and pulled her inside, laying her down in the foyer. He went to close the door, and noticed the blood on his hands. He kicked the door shut.
Darby never did tell him what had happened, she just held his hand and bled to death on his floor. They buried her three days later in a cemetery on the edge of town. Ruth tried to console him, but she had never known Darby, and she didn’t have much of a family on her own. She didn’t understand, and she knew that. So she left him alone. Eric didn’t speak for three weeks, and when he finally did, it was to tell Ruth he was leaving.
Eric had been thinking, and he had decided that any able man who allowed things like that to happen to girls like Darby just wasn’t fit to live. He signed up with the police service, and talked his way into a junior detective job. It had always been easier to not think about anything difficult, but that had all changed the night Darby died. He wasn’t the sort for regret, he was a man of action, and it was time to get to work.
finchfic "Start" ChallengeRating: PG/Het
Warnings: OC Character Death
Disclaimer: I would just like to say that canon means absolutely nothing to me! Srsly tho, the Eric Finch who lives in my head is a miserable drunk who thinks too much and has an ex-wife who loves and hates him. That's about all I've got so far. So, this is about that.
Riley always hated cutting switches, but their father made him. Eric had done an evil thing, and that was the way of it. Eric had cut his fair share of switches for Riley, too. Darby had said their father was an evil man before she had gone away, Riley saw it more as a balance of good and evil, a case of some acts for thee and some acts for me.
Eric had very little opinion either way. Most of his young life he felt himself more a draft mule than a thinking creature, which suited him just fine. Riley had spent his time studying and crafting complex replies to simple questions, while Eric had grown up strong and simple, not daft but perhaps just a bit too genuine. Riley went off to college, and when Eric was old enough he bid their father adieu and joined Darby in the city.
It was easiest not to think much working in the civil service. Obedience was rewarded. Quickly he was promoted to a cozy little desk job putting seals on official papers and then putting those papers into envelopes, which a lovely girl named Ruth would come and collect at the end of each day. He blushed every time he saw her. Still single, Darby readily advised on the best ways to court women, and Eric soaked it up like a sponge. Ruth giggled and batted her eyelashes, and eventually agreed to a drink after work.
After that, it wasn’t long before he and Ruth were engaged, and as Ruth insisted on a white wedding, it wasn’t much longer before they were married. The civil life was as uneventful and content as could be, they neither suffered nor were ecstatic, and the city took care of most of their needs. Eric didn’t wander, and Ruth didn’t harass him.
One night very late there was a desperate pounding at the door. Eric threw on his robe and stepped into his slippers and rushed downstairs. When he opened the door, his sister fell into his arms. She had been leaning against the door. He picked her up and pulled her inside, laying her down in the foyer. He went to close the door, and noticed the blood on his hands. He kicked the door shut.
Darby never did tell him what had happened, she just held his hand and bled to death on his floor. They buried her three days later in a cemetery on the edge of town. Ruth tried to console him, but she had never known Darby, and she didn’t have much of a family on her own. She didn’t understand, and she knew that. So she left him alone. Eric didn’t speak for three weeks, and when he finally did, it was to tell Ruth he was leaving.
Eric had been thinking, and he had decided that any able man who allowed things like that to happen to girls like Darby just wasn’t fit to live. He signed up with the police service, and talked his way into a junior detective job. It had always been easier to not think about anything difficult, but that had all changed the night Darby died. He wasn’t the sort for regret, he was a man of action, and it was time to get to work.
