caught up in the riptide.

𝗕𝗜𝗢𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗣𝗛𝗬.

tw: absent parent, financial struggle, burnout, miscarriage

finley arthur has always been in love with the ocean. it was the one thing that they could always afford when he was a kid; there was no price tag for the beach as long as they were careful, and his mom was well versed in that sort of thing. more often than not, the water was too cold to swim in - but that wasn’t why he was there. no, finn visited the ocean because he loved everything about it. he loved the water - the salty sweet smell of it, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, the sights of endless blue. he loved the sand - hot beneath his feet, threatening to swallow him whole, a welcoming gritty texture that always seemed to accept his presence so easily. and he loved the companionship.

there is a certain devotion that a little boy might feel for his mother, and finley was full up of it before he was five years old. a single mother who never breathed a word of who his father was, bellamy arthur parented her son as if it was her full time job. there was not a day that went by that he thought for even a moment that he wasn’t loved. all encompassing, even smothering at times, but her love was always there when he needed it. growing up, those needs were met with boxed macaroni and his favorite disney movie for the third time in a school week. as a teenager, those needs were met with pizza money left on the counter and a hug before he went to school. as an adult, he does his best to pay that love back in kind.

high school was hard for finley, just as it is for everyone that he has ever known. the worse the economy got, the higher their rent was, and the more his mother had to work. from the age of thirteen he was ordering his own dinners on the good days, and preparing them himself on the bad. from fourteen he was solely responsible for keeping the house clean - not because it was asked of him, not really, but because he could see that his mom was floundering. she deserved better than that. from fifteen it was the dinners, the cleaning, a part time job. keeping his grades up took everything that he had, but this was everything that finley had. his social life fell to the wayside, he started lashing out at classmates, at teachers, and more than once his mother was called from work to pick up her wayward son. they were on hard times only made worse when one of these events caused his mother to lose her job; that was the slap in the face he needed, and at eighteen finley graduated near the top of his class.

paying attention in school didn’t get easier for finley when he got to community college - if anything, it was the opposite. not only were there new distractions - other students, the interesting subjects that he could dive into, a new school to learn the layout of - there was also the fact that he had to work even harder to keep a roof over their heads. his mom was down to just one job when he started his classes - a waitressing job that kept her out of the house more often than not - and he couldn’t let her be the only one struggling to keep things together. between keeping his grades up (again) and picking up two jobs that pulled him apart like a dog at tug of war, he crashed and burned at the beginning of his third semester. it was only pure luck that it was early enough that he could still drop out of classes and get his money back; that semester off and he was right as rain - or at least the closest thing he had ever known - with a healthily padded savings account and bright eyes turned towards the future.

tw; miscarriage. in his last semester, finley found out that his girlfriend of three months ( a pretty girl who begged him to help her study and landed herself a man who would do anything to make her smile ), was pregnant. though he was absolutely positive that neither of them were ready to be parents - and silently cursing himself for landing a child in the same exact situation that he had grown up in - this pregnancy was just what finley needed to find himself again. he worked hard, she stayed up late helping him with his classes, and they moved into a house of their own. everything he was went into being the best partner, the best dad that he could be, and they were happy for a time. when the worst came to past and they lost the baby, their relationship fell apart. the girl who had his heart moved out, leaving finley behind. he hasn’t spoken to her since.

with his girlfriend gone, finley could hardly afford the house on his own - which is to say that he couldn’t afford it at all. but it was a lovely three bedroom, a home sought out because of the ability to stay long term, the ability to … grow a family. with that dream washed away, finley still couldn’t bear to part with the one thing he still had of it. and so he searched for a roommate instead, letting someone into the home that was meant to be for his family, and he thought he would hate it. he thought he would hate them for daring to be in a space that was not their own. but he didn’t. he hated being alone, and this? this helped him start to heal. beyond that, there was also the fact, of course, that it helped him to save money. with his mom having moved into a smaller place the moment that he moved out on his own, he could now afford to help her with her rent, her bills, and maybe even a little bit extra to spoil herself. it wasn’t perfect, but it was good.

after finishing his degree with the community college, finley found that he didn’t have much of a direction to go from there. once upon a time he had dreamed about going off to university, pursuing something - because surely he would know what he wanted to do by then, right? - and leaving this small town behind. now, he cannot imagine leaving the home that he has made for himself, carved from the face of tragedy and cultivated into something warm and welcoming. instead of that he found for himself a job that he loves, a group of friends that he feels comfortable with, and a roommate who makes sure that he doesn’t overwork himself. it’s not the best life, but it is his. and he can appreciate that for what it is.

goes almost exclusively by ‘finn’; he was picked on when he was a kid for being the best friend of tom sawyer, but he secretly kind of liked it - those books have always been some of his favorites, after all.

will spend his days off at the aquarium or the beach, loving to be out of the house even if not away from who he shares it with. has also been known to enjoy a good movie at the theaters.

dreamt of being an astronaut or a weatherman - has scientifically accurate constellations on his ceiling and clouds on his walls, well aware that his landlord would not be pleased.