WHO: Finn Rojas, with a cameo of NPC!Jack Clarkson WHEN: Afternoon of December 2 WHERE: K Auto's parking lot SUMMARY: Finn is ambushed leaving work. WARNINGS: Absent parent, general sads BINGO PROMPT: Cold Snap
"I'm headed out, Mehdi."
Finn only just heard Mehdi's muffled reply coming from the office as he breezed out of the garage. The cooler December air hit him in the face, making him pause to actually shrug on his jacket that he had been carrying. Now that the thought of it, maybe that's what Mehdi had been saying in his muffled reply; he may have been his boss, but he'd always been a little more of a father figure than most bosses were, thanks to Finn having known the man his entire life. He wouldn't put it past him to issue a jacket reminder on behalf of his mom.
It wasn't until he was only steps away from his car that Finn realized he was being watched. Hesitating, he looked up to where a man was standing next to a reasonably sized sedan that had to have been a rental car. He only knew it was a rental because it had Virginia plates and the man that was watching him -- and now, after he saw Finn notice him, started advancing toward him across the parking lot -- lived in Seattle. He was supposed to be in Seattle, though Finn had known that he had been skulking around somewhere in Dunhaven for a few days now, since the day Ezra had gotten married.
What Finn wanted to do was get into his car and drive away, but he didn't put it past the other man to get into his own car and follow him home. He had already invaded his town, after all, even after he knew Ezra had told him to stay away. What would keep him from invading the place he lived, too? He had done so already with his place of work; Finn would have wondered more about how he had found that bit of information out, but it was pretty fruitless. He'd lived in Dunhaven his entire life and knew how the small town worked when it came to information.
Instead of leaving, Finn stood his ground. He watched as his father approached, the two of them sharing the same space for the first time. For the first time, he was seeing the proof that Jack Clarkson had, in fact, donated toward his DNA. As Finn had grown up, he had known that he didn't look much like the Solomons. There were bits and pieces that he'd inherited, of course, but as he had grown up and into his features, the similarities between himself and his mother had started to blur. That was because, he now saw, he looked very much like this man. He wasn't an exact copy, of course, but it was there, in the cut of his jaw, his stockier build, even in the way he walked. He was familiar in ways that Finn hadn't realized would be familiar until that very moment -- and that was enough to make a wave of emotions wash over him that he was sure would have taken multiple therapy sessions to dissect.
Jack came to a stop before Finn and he could tell by the way that the other man's eyes lingered on him that he was drawing the same conclusions. They stood in silence for a moment, Finn's emotions simmering just under the surface. The tension was obvious -- it wouldn't have been all that surprising if Mehdi had been able to sense it from inside the garage.
It was Jack that broke the silence. "Hi, Finn. I'm Jack."
"Yeah." Finn crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I know."
Whether or not that was the sort of response he had been expecting, Finn couldn't tell. He'd never been amazing at reading people, no matter how much he liked to pretend he was. It was even harder than normal in this instance, though, when he seemed to be feeling every emotion there was, all of them stemming from having been ostensibly abandoned by the man in front of him for twenty years, only to have him dropped into his life, without his permission.
In fact, that thought was what drove Finn as he continued, "Pretty sure Ezra told you that I didn't want to see you when he first came to town."
Jack didn't have a response to that, or so it seemed. Instead, he said, "Well, I'm here now and I wanted to see you."
There was a part of Finn that wanted to be open and understanding with this man. That part of him belonged to the boy that had hoped that one day there would be a knock on the door and his father would be standing there on the other side, full of explanations for his absence and declarations of love for his son. It belonged to the boy that had brought his grandfather or Mehdi to the events in elementary school that called for a father figure. It belonged to the boy who saw the other kids at school with two parents and wondered what he had done wrong to drive his second parent away.
Finn wasn't that boy anymore, though. He had let go of the phantom that was his absentee father years ago. He had stopped thinking about the father that had chosen to abandon him and instead focused on the love and support he received from the father that chose to stay. Diego was his father, not this man.
And so, Finn ignored the part of him that wanted to be accepting. He snorted, rolling his eyes to the sky. "You've had twenty years to see me. You've known where I was. Hell, you've definitely known where I was since summer, but you didn't even try to contact me. So forgive me if I honestly don't give a single shit about what you want."
Finn could see the muscle in Jack's jaw tense -- the exact same reaction that he himself had when he was frustrated with something not going the way he had hoped. (He didn't give a single shit about that, either.) "Finn, you need to understand that I was sixteen and -- "
"So was my mom." Finn paused just a moment, taking in a breath to rein in his temper before he continued, "She was sixteen-years-old and she put her entire life on hold to deal with the consequences that you got the luxury to leave behind. I'm not an idiot and I know it's no small thing, but don't you dare act like you get some kind of pass, not when my mom gave up fucking everything for me."
Shaking his head, Finn let his arms drop and began to fish his keys out of his pocket. "Look, I appreciate you taking the initiative to stalk me to find me and I'm sorry if you expected some kind of warm reunion here, but this is all you're getting."
"I wanted to meet you." Finn might not have been good at reading people, but he knew enough to recognize that Jack was being sincere. "I know that this is long overdue. I know that I made mistakes. I don't -- I have no expectations for you. I just figured that if I was going to be in this town, that the least I can do is say hello."
Finn avoided looking at Jack, instead keeping his eyes on his keys in his hand. "Well, mission accomplished." His gaze rose, meeting the other man's. "Leave my mom alone. Unless she looks for you, you leave her alone."
Jack looked like he was going to argue, but instead just nodded his head. Finn took a step back, then unlocked his car with a push of the button on his fob. A moment later and he had opened the car door. Before stepping in, he paused and looked at his father one more time. "See you around, Jack."
Finn did his best to ignore the man as he pulled out of his parking spot and to the entrance of the parking lot, but even he couldn't help but take a single glance back in his rear view mirror. Jack was still standing there, watching Finn as he drove away. Finn didn't know what he should have felt as the man grew smaller in his mirror, but he knew it wasn't indifference and he hated it.