Emily (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2007-09-16 03:17 pm
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2007-09-16 03:17 pm
Flack - Held Up for All to See
Fandom: CSI:NY
Title: Held Up for All to See
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iluvroadrunner6
Rating: FRT
Characters: Don Flack
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
csi50 Prompt: 016. Oath
theatrical_muse Prompt: Topic #195
Content Warning: Spoilers for "The Fall," "Heroes," "Consequences," "Past Imperfect," and "...Comes Around"
Summary: Flack reflects on the differences between heroes and villains.
Author's Note: Flack doesn't talk to me much in first person, but for this one, he decided that was what he wanted.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of CSI:NY. They're owned by CBS. However, any and all original characters are mine, so please do not use them without my permission.
When you’re a kid, heroes and villains are clear cut. Then again, everything when you’re a kid is black and white. Right and wrong. Heroes are the guys who always do the right thing—who save people when they’re in trouble—and the villains are the ones that the heroes always have to stop. Heroes are always perfect, always make the right choices, no questions asked. When you’re looking at it through a child’s eyes, there are no shades of gray, no lines in the middle. Either or, that’s it. Usually the kids are told to look to the police department or the fire department as an example of a hero, of what the kids should aim to be when they grow up. A man with a badge is someone who’s supposed to help, not hurt. They swear an oath to protect and serve, and that’s what they do. Point blank. End of story.
It’s not until you get older that you learn that everything’s not so black and white. Putting a badge in someone’s hand doesn’t automatically make them a hero, and being a hero doesn’t automatically make someone perfect. Cuz some guys get pushed too far. You work with cops like Gavin and Aiden, and they’re good cops, always have been. They know their right from wrong, and they do their best to keep the bad guys off the streets. But then they meet that one case, one case where they’re pushed too far to stay on the right side of the line, and then suddenly everything falls apart.
With Gavin, he was doing what any father would do—protect his son at all costs. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but in his world, not everything was the job. Family was family, and family was first. First thing he ever taught any of his rookies was to love the job, but not love it above all else. That they couldn’t love the job if it was all they had, because they wouldn’t be able to understand what they were protecting. While that one action cost him his badge and the job he loved, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same. The law is one thing, family is another. I don’t think that Gavin would have been able to live with himself if he hadn’t done what he did.
Then with Aiden—I think she was just at the end of her rope. We couldn’t nail this guy—not with the means that we had. And she just couldn’t let this guy walk again. The piece of scum had raped the same woman twice, and she was just going to let him walk the streets like it was nothing? Again? She couldn’t do that—no person would. She snapped—she didn’t snap for long, before she really did something she’d regret, but she did snap. And no matter how well-meaning her intentions, she crossed a line she shouldn’t have crossed. It took losing her to actually get the guy—which is probably the biggest regret any of us have—but at least in the end, she didn’t cross the line for nothing.
The thing with working where I do, though, is that every move I make tends to be guided by the moral compass of Mac Taylor. It’s not that I don’t like the guy. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be standing here today. And I’m not saying that I disagree with all of the choices he makes when it comes to going after cops—I just don’t like the repercussions. Truby had it coming—he crossed the line for his own personal gain, probably more than once. But the thing with putting a cop away, is that it’s never a clean cut deal.
The thing about having to discredit a cop is that once you do, everything they ever did on the force gets reviewed. No matter how good the collar was back then, they fuck up in a spectacular way and everything gets dragged through the mud. Lawyers appeal, bad guys go free. Letting Clay Dobson back on the street was probably the biggest consequence of Truby’s mistake, and innocent people died because of it. Those deaths would always rest on Truby’s shoulders, no matter what he does to redeem himself. I can’t say that Truby is all bad though. In the end, despite what Mac did to him, he took responsibility for his actions, and saved Mac’s ass from the disciplinary board. So while he wasn’t perfect—no one is, really—he still had a sense of right and wrong. Sometimes.
Heroes and villains are necessarily two distinct groups—as much as we’d like them to be, they never have been. It’s all a matter of the choices we make—and which ones get held up for all the world to see.
Title: Held Up for All to See
Author:
iluvroadrunner6Rating: FRT
Characters: Don Flack
csi50 Prompt: 016. Oaththeatrical_muse Prompt: Topic #195Content Warning: Spoilers for "The Fall," "Heroes," "Consequences," "Past Imperfect," and "...Comes Around"
Summary: Flack reflects on the differences between heroes and villains.
Author's Note: Flack doesn't talk to me much in first person, but for this one, he decided that was what he wanted.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of CSI:NY. They're owned by CBS. However, any and all original characters are mine, so please do not use them without my permission.
When you’re a kid, heroes and villains are clear cut. Then again, everything when you’re a kid is black and white. Right and wrong. Heroes are the guys who always do the right thing—who save people when they’re in trouble—and the villains are the ones that the heroes always have to stop. Heroes are always perfect, always make the right choices, no questions asked. When you’re looking at it through a child’s eyes, there are no shades of gray, no lines in the middle. Either or, that’s it. Usually the kids are told to look to the police department or the fire department as an example of a hero, of what the kids should aim to be when they grow up. A man with a badge is someone who’s supposed to help, not hurt. They swear an oath to protect and serve, and that’s what they do. Point blank. End of story.
It’s not until you get older that you learn that everything’s not so black and white. Putting a badge in someone’s hand doesn’t automatically make them a hero, and being a hero doesn’t automatically make someone perfect. Cuz some guys get pushed too far. You work with cops like Gavin and Aiden, and they’re good cops, always have been. They know their right from wrong, and they do their best to keep the bad guys off the streets. But then they meet that one case, one case where they’re pushed too far to stay on the right side of the line, and then suddenly everything falls apart.
With Gavin, he was doing what any father would do—protect his son at all costs. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but in his world, not everything was the job. Family was family, and family was first. First thing he ever taught any of his rookies was to love the job, but not love it above all else. That they couldn’t love the job if it was all they had, because they wouldn’t be able to understand what they were protecting. While that one action cost him his badge and the job he loved, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same. The law is one thing, family is another. I don’t think that Gavin would have been able to live with himself if he hadn’t done what he did.
Then with Aiden—I think she was just at the end of her rope. We couldn’t nail this guy—not with the means that we had. And she just couldn’t let this guy walk again. The piece of scum had raped the same woman twice, and she was just going to let him walk the streets like it was nothing? Again? She couldn’t do that—no person would. She snapped—she didn’t snap for long, before she really did something she’d regret, but she did snap. And no matter how well-meaning her intentions, she crossed a line she shouldn’t have crossed. It took losing her to actually get the guy—which is probably the biggest regret any of us have—but at least in the end, she didn’t cross the line for nothing.
The thing with working where I do, though, is that every move I make tends to be guided by the moral compass of Mac Taylor. It’s not that I don’t like the guy. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be standing here today. And I’m not saying that I disagree with all of the choices he makes when it comes to going after cops—I just don’t like the repercussions. Truby had it coming—he crossed the line for his own personal gain, probably more than once. But the thing with putting a cop away, is that it’s never a clean cut deal.
The thing about having to discredit a cop is that once you do, everything they ever did on the force gets reviewed. No matter how good the collar was back then, they fuck up in a spectacular way and everything gets dragged through the mud. Lawyers appeal, bad guys go free. Letting Clay Dobson back on the street was probably the biggest consequence of Truby’s mistake, and innocent people died because of it. Those deaths would always rest on Truby’s shoulders, no matter what he does to redeem himself. I can’t say that Truby is all bad though. In the end, despite what Mac did to him, he took responsibility for his actions, and saved Mac’s ass from the disciplinary board. So while he wasn’t perfect—no one is, really—he still had a sense of right and wrong. Sometimes.
Heroes and villains are necessarily two distinct groups—as much as we’d like them to be, they never have been. It’s all a matter of the choices we make—and which ones get held up for all the world to see.