A/N: Fair warning; this isn't like what I usually write, it's probably the fluffiest most sickly sweet thing I've ever written but every now and again I just want my babies to have a happily ever after, you know?
Charlie wasn't one for happy endings.
That wasn't to say that he didn't want one, per se, it's just that he didn't think that they existed. If they did then he'd certainly never seen one. There were times when he thought that he might of, but they all turned out to be bust in the end. He had proof to back it up, too.
But, as he stood back to admire his handiwork on the garden he thought that if there was such a thing as a happy ending, and that if God had seen fit to bestow one on him instead of someone more deserving than this is probably how he would have envisioned it.
The previous owners of the house had seen fit to plant daisies along the outside of the wooden verandah. While yes, they would look nice in full bloom, years of neglect had led to them damaging the wood. In some places, the damage was so bad his foot had gone right through the rotten wood and right into the gravel and tarp underneath.
"Looks good Mister Davis!" Said a voice from the footpath by the mailbox. It was a young girl named Juliette who lived two doors down with her grandparents. She was always on the lookout to make some extra money, and Charlie would occasionally send her on errands for him. He'd done the same thing as a young man and put all the money towards ensuring that the lights
stayed on for another month. He was inclined to believe that Juliette had more personal things to spend the money on, like fashionable wide-legged pants.
"Thank you." He said, wiping the dirt from his hands onto a rag he'd tucked into his belt. "How are you and your family this week?"
"Pretty good, we got a dog. A big mean one."
"I've always been fond of dogs. Has it got a name?"
"It's up for debate. Grandma wants to name is Birdie, but Grandpa thinks that he should be a Buster."
"And what do you think?"
"I think it should be Chocolate. Or maybe Vegemite. Have you ever had a dog?"
"Good name choices, I'd like to have a dog called Vegemite but I'm not sure I could stand the shedding. We had one when I was a kid, he was an old beast called Friendly. The name was ironic, I don't think that dog was friendly in his life. Hated me, hated my parents, hated my grandparents...But he did like food."
"Most dogs do." She agreed, "Speaking of, I'm going down to the shop. Do you need anything?" Charlie took his wallet out and removed a couple of dollar coins."If you could bring me back some eggs I'd appreciate it."
"Can do." She smiled and climbed back onto her bike. "Oh, right. We're going to see my Dad over Christmas so Grandma wants to know if you can check our mail."
"I can do that."
"Okay, thank you!"
Charlie suspected that the reason the older Longs wanted him to get their mail was because he was a copper. When he'd come into owning his own home he'd picked one in a neighborhood that was identical to the one that he grew up in. Immigrants, poor people and old people from back when this was a nice part of town. No one was likely to steal mail if they knew it was being watched by a local copper.
He had precious little else to do in the front yard now it was weeded, the grass was mowed and he'd removed the troublesome daisies. The sun was riding low in the sky anyway and he figured that he should go inside and pay some bills. Seemed like there was always bills to pay. But it was easier to pay them on time, living in a house with two solid incomes.
It wasn't what he would have picked out for himself, as a child. He'd expected to find a gal and settle down and then she'd stop working to raise however many babies God saw fit to give them. Just like his parents. His father had instilled in him young that when he found a girl that he should make sure she's well taken care of.
His father did not prime him for what to do if he found a man. He was flying by the seat of his pants for a long time but more recently he felt like he was able to get a handle on things with a little more ease than he had before. He was always a bit hesitant to admit it out loud, but Danny Parks was easy to love. He was casual and funny. He didn't make things weird.
He stuck his wallet back into his pocket and turned his eyes back to the house. The only thing out of place was the burlap sack of dead plants and weeds now resting on the side of the house against the side gate. He'd dispose of it tomorrow, he decided. Sitting in a small pot on a little table by the door was an aloe cutting that had been a house warming gift from Jean. Danny
complained that he was babying it, but he thought it was too young to be repotted.
When he was a kid, thinking about his future life, he hadn't put much thought into cooking. He didn't really think he'd be the one doing it. He'd never been interested in a girl who knew how to cook before. Danny couldn't be trusted with cooking after he almost burned down Jean's kitchen trying to make a roast the night he'd asked Charlie if he wanted to get married.
Suffice to say, Charlie had been too upset with him to say anything other than a few insults and then locked his bedroom door so Danny couldn't get in. It had been a pretty mean thing to do but he'd been angry and frightened. He probably wouldn't change it, since the following week Danny had found a much nicer way to ask him on the fire escape at the station.
Contented with the days work, he returned to the house. If he didn't say so himself, it was a nice place. The furniture was clean and tidy, the rugs were beat and there was a small vase of flowers on the coffee table that Rose had given him as a no hard feelings/house warming gift. Things were good with her at the moment. That was, of course, liable to change at any moment depending on what the papers published about his cases but for the moment, things were good.
He found Danny exactly where he expected too: sitting on the old sofa, listening to the cricket on the radio. Before he sat, Charlie took a few moments to enjoy the domesticity of it all. Just the two of them, in a house they owned doing the most domestic thing he can think of. He knew he should make something for dinner.
But, he justified to himself, they didn't have any eggs and whatever it was that he planned to make for dinner needed a lot of eggs. He walked around the couch and dropped down next to Danny who seemed surprised to see him.
"Finished in the garden for today?"
"For today. We'll have to take the weeds from today to the tip soon."
"I can borrow a ute from Bill?"
"Yeah, it's not that many weeds. Pretty sure it'll fit into the back of Matthew's old car."
Despite having had ownership of Matthew's old car for a few years by this point, he still only ever thought of it as Matthew's old car. He just couldn't shake the association, no matter what he tried.
Danny had one of his legs resting on a footstool with frozen peas on it. He refused to stop playing cricket, even when it aggravated old injuries. It used to annoy him, and on some level it still did but he's also come to accept that people are liable to be idiots sometimes. There are other, more important things to fight about.
He leaned into the coffee table and grabbed the mail with one hand. Bill, bill, bill, junk, letter for Danny from an unknown sender, more junk, and a letter for Charlie. He didn't need to open it to know what was inside.
"You should read those," Danny says, but he already knows Charlie won't.
"If he has anything to say to me, then he can say it on the back of a cheque for five hundred dollars."
"Did we take the last of the pound notes back to the bank?"
"Hmmmmm...We did, yeah, when we did the shopping."
"That's a relief."
"You've got something here from..Your mother."
"Probably yelling at me for not calling enough."
"We live twenty minutes away, why don't you just go visit? It's not like she's hiding out in Perth."
Charlie had known that only bad things could come from his mother letting Bernie into their lives, and he'd been right. But he did appreciate the reprieve of not having to call every night. Life was all about taking the good with the bad, he supposed. Danny's mother on the other hand was...Sweet. Like Jean, but not sarcastic. She had taken to referring to him as her second son, and he found that he liked being a part of a family more than not.
"Because I'm a busy, busy man," Danny replied, running his eyes over the letter. "She's actually sent me the documents she wants signed so I have power of attorney over her if something happens."
"Is she...Expecting something to happen?"
"No, at least, I don't think so."
"Maybe you'd know if you went to see her more often."
"Hmph," Danny grunted but allowed Charlie to press in closer, so their legs were touching.
He'd never been one for displays of affection, but for Danny, he'd make the compromise. He wasn't about to start sleeping in his arms or anything like that but little touches? That he could manage. Danny stretched out one hand to turn off the radio.
"You don't have to stop listening to the cricket because I'm here."
"I know. I'd just rather give you my full attention." He said, sweetly.
"Mmm? Why is that?"
"Because I love you, and I love listening to you."
"No one's ever said that before."
"Except me, every day."
"I don't know about every day."
"Every second day, then."
"What's really going on?"
Danny sighed at him and gave him an undecipherable (at least to Charlie) look. Charlie held his ground.
"It's been...A rough week at work. I just want to spend some quality time letting my husband tell me about old dusty books he inherited from my step-uncle." Charlie felt a small blush dust over his cheeks as Danny hooked one ankle around his.
"I'm not reading any of those dusty old books at the moment."
"Then what are you reading every night before we fall asleep?"
"Advancements in Suspect Identification Through Fingerprints." He replied, matter of factly. Danny blinked once, then twice, and said
"Do you ever stop working?"
"Ain't that the million dollar question," Charlie said,
"What's it about then?" Danny asked, anyway.
"It's about how to collect fingerprints in a way that avoids smudging and helps to eliminate human error."
"Oh, that'd be helpful."
"Hm. Not sure that I buy it working in person but it's smart in theory. Rather than just taking pictures of the fingerprint, the author suggests using sticking-tape to pick it up off whatever surface and then layering it over the fingerprints of the known suspect."
"So you have a better view of how well it lines up."
"Exactly."
Danny seemed to consider this for a moment.
"Why do you think it won't work in person?"
"When me, Mattie and the Doc had to clean and stick together this film once, I kept getting air bubbles under the tape. I think that it would be okay on a smooth surface but on something curved? No way."
"Hm." Danny said, "Where did you get a book like that?"
"Well, I suppose it's not a book technically, but an essay. Doctor Harvey gave it to me to borrow, along with one about blood typing."
"Ah. I should have known. She's probably hoping that if you know more about science then the boys'll take it more seriously."
"I think that she just feels bad she couldn't put the tip of my finger back on after...You know." He said, imitating the noise of a buzz saw. The good doctor had not been pleased at all when the two of them turned up in the wee hours of the morning covered in blood with a suspect in the back of their car.
"I'm so glad that you can joke about that." Danny grumbled, "I was horrified."
"Gotta learn how to joke about it or else what am I gonna do?" Charlie asked, looking down at the finger that should have had his wedding ring on it. Like most things related to Danny though, he had to keep that someplace else. He ended up putting it on the chain around his neck that also had a St Michael's pendant on it. It had been a gift from Mattie, years and years ago, as a way of saying ' no hard feelings '. He needed to call her actually, make sure that she was coming to Doctor Harvey and Matthew's surprise anniversary party he'd foolishly agreed to organize.
One day, he'd learn that when Jean asked other people to organize things it was just so it appeared like she didn't organize everything when really...She did.
"You should give thinking a rest for today," Danny advised. "Just sit here with me and relax."
"Easier said than done."
"I could put the cricket back on. Nothing puts you to sleep faster."
"It's not even five yet, I don't want to sleep."
"Then just sit here, with me."
So he did until Juliette stopped by with the eggs.
Perhaps it wasn't the happy ending he would have given himself as a child. Danny was no blushing bride and he wasn't a very good prince charming but it was safe to say that now he was here? This was something like a happy ending, and he wouldn't have it any other way.