/I apologize for this fic. Whoooey. Maybe I should just make a genre for 'Charlie Davis is about to have a mental break' because that's what this fic is. Warnings? Violence, self destructive activities and one instance of self harm. And a tiny bit of blood, of course. Leave a review if you like it, and of course feel free to contact me for a chat!
The click of a lighter stains the air. It flares. Body warmed metal reflects pale skin. The fire burns briefly, illuminating his chin. The cigarette burns softly, a chilled hand deposits the lighter back into his pocket. He inhales. The smoke burns him from the core out. Greyed teeth behind pink lips hold the cigarette in place, while he folds his arms over his chest.
Behind him, there is a crashing sound of bat colliding with flesh. A groan. A crack. He pauses to exhale the smoke. Behind him, Danny goes at their suspect again with his cricket bat. Charlie doesn't need to face the scene to know it. The chiché of their suspect tied to a chair, the intimidating darkness of the room. He doesn't need to see Danny's face to view his maniac smile, the one he finds he directs at the people he thinks really deserve it. Perhaps his morality is a bit dubious at times.
He raises his fingers to hold the cylinder away from his lips as he lets out a second breath into the darkness, well aware of the intimidating figure he must pose. Danny grunts softly, and Charlie finally turns to face the mess the other had made of their suspect. Munro spits what seems to be a tooth onto the floor. Charlie gives him an impassive look. "Davis!" There's a sound of desperation in his voice. He was trying to appeal to the idealistic child he had once been. When he believed that the world was kind. He says nothing. "I don't know where he is, you have to believe me." He said. Charlie raises the cigarette to his lips, saying nothing. "You think I know. You think I did this!" He said, on the verge of becoming hysterical. Charlie's hardly said ten words to him in this entire 'interview'.
"No. You don't." He states, flicking his cigarette lightly between his fingers. He moves closer, so he right up in Munro's face. He smells like smoke mixed with household cleaner. It's not pleasant and he is well aware. Munro leans back as far as he can. Charlie takes another drag of his cigarette, and it just narrowly misses burning the man's cheek. "But you know where I can find out, don't you?" Behind him, there is a soft clap of wood meeting skin as Danny menaces his bat. Munro doesn't reply until Danny moves closer, and gives a sigh.
"Just tell us, mate."
Danny didn't have Charlie's deep hatred of the man, but he knew well enough what he'd done to harbor his own judgments. Charlie continues to watch him, as his eyes flick between the pair of them. "The name, Munro." He said, as calm as he could be. Charlie Davis always seems to have an infinite amount of patience in these situations. (Which is why he is the interrogator, and Danny is the brawn.) They stare until Charlie is forced to take another drag. He blows the smoke into Munro's face. A direct show of his patience fading. Munro spits the name out like a bad taste.
"Talk to the bar man at Crow's Hat." He spits. "I don't know anything else!" Charlie takes one last drag of his cigarette, and blows the smoke mostly out his nose.
"I know." He said, before leaning forward and putting it out in the space between Munro's left eye and his nose. He sneers, watching him scream and wither. Oddly enough, he can't feel anything.
…
"Something's wrong." Charlie stated. Hobart glanced up at him. Charlie didn't talk a lot these days, so when he did have something to say, it was probably worth listening to.
"What something?"
"I don't know." He said, "Where's Danny?"
"Haven't seen him since Lunch." Hobart replied, standing up and walking over to Charlie's desk. Charlie's face paled.
"He wouldn't." He breathed, and got to his feet. "That fool." He said, as he stripped off his Blazer. He dumped it on his chair, and crammed his cigarettes into his pocket. He grabbed his gloves after a moment as well. He turned back to look at Hobart, a set determination in his eyes. "If I'm not back in an hour in a half…Panic." He states, giving no reason for his departure. He ran as fast as he could out of the building, the click click click of his shoes feeling like tiny nails being driven into his head as he sprints past Lawson. The man pauses, but after a moment, decides not to follow. It's probably for the better anyway.
…
He pulls the Doc's car up at the bar. Crow's Hat is as untrustworthy as the bird it was named for. He supposes that's why they called it that. Organized crime, human trafficking, drugs, alcohol, it was all in there. As well as that, it was highly exclusive. The sort of exclusive that makes Charlie wonder why they even put up this front anyway. But then again, he doesn't really care about much these days.
The door is locked, but he finds an open side window to climb though. The place was smashed when he got in. Chairs overturned, drinks spilled. Smoldering cigarettes sits in their ashtrays, smoke curls towards it's home in the sky, the air reeks of addiction, both chemical and not. He passes though.
He can hear a struggle from a mile away. He breaks out into a sprint. He's a fast man, Mattie tells him that the smoking will slow him down but he hadn't cared at the time. All he cares about now is making sure Danny is okay.
He kicks the door down, looking in he notes Danny is pinned beneath the weight of a larger club member while the other attacks him. He doesn't have time to come up with a plan before he grabs a chair to use as a weapon.
…
He puts Danny's head in his lap. Both of them are covered in blood. Danny, his own. Charlie, his own, and the members of the club. He made sure not to kill any of them, he didn't want investigations. That would simply throw a spanner into his plans. He would not approve. After a moment, he leans down to rest his forehead on Danny's and just think. How did this happen, he thinks.
He know fully well how something like this happens, he thinks, as he sits back and holds a cigarette between his grey teeth. Well cared for teeth are white. Teeth that have been white for a long time are grey. He lights it up, the soft burning is loud in the stagnant silence of the room. He takes it between his thumb and pointer, pulls it away, blows smoke. He considers how he ended up here.
It felt like, in this world, the only person who really liked him was Danny. It was an over reaction. People liked him, sure. But who would actually care for him. Lawson? Maybe. Jean? Maybe. Mattie? Once, a long time ago, before he shut everyone out, maybe. But Danny? He'd only known Danny for six months. And in that six months, Danny had decided, somewhere along the way, that they should be friends. He has no idea why. He was never friendly to the other man, was never even really polite, so consumed by his search that other things, like eating and sleeping, became secondary. For a reason that he can't understand, Danny decided to fix that. The first person to ever befriend him because he wanted to. Not because the job called for it.
What did Charlie Davis, the golden boy destined to be the youngest police commissioner in all of Australia do? Shut him out. Shut him away. Tried so hard to leave him out of this mess, only for him to become involved anyhow. Where has that put him, Charlie? He asked himself, as he blew smoke into the room. Dead. It put him dead.
…
That's how they find him, an hour and a half later, sitting with Danny's bloodied body in his lap. He's gone though almost the whole packet of cigarettes. They take Danny away in an ambulance, and Lawson tries to talk to him but all the words sound like static in his ears. It's painful, and it does nothing to ease his guilt. He has no idea how it happens but very suddenly Lawson is holding him. And oddly enough, he can't feel anything.
…
"Is Charlie okay?" Danny asks. It's the first thing he says, when he realizes what must have happened. Mattie nods, after a moment.
"He is." Danny nods, and relaxs back on the bed. "He thought they killed you.'
"He didn't do anything rash, did he?"
"He put one of them in a coma, but he didn't kill any of them, if that's what you were worried about."
"Good." Danny said, leaning back. Mattie sighed softly and bushed Danny's hand with hers.
"I always thought it would be you, convincing him to pull these things."
"Convincing?"
"You're not a violent man."
"And he is?"
"I don't know anything about him."
"And maybe there's a reason for that."
"And you do?" Danny sighed and turned his head away.
"I'm tired, Mattie." He offered, not wanting to talk about it anymore. "Does he know I'm okay?"
"I don't know. Lawson took him."
"Took him?"
"To his house. Jean didn't want him in ours."
"Why?"
"I don't know." They both know why, but neither say it.
…
Charlie walks though the door into Lawson's house. There is a rug on the entryway floor. His eyes fix on it. One of the corners is peeling up, Lawson notices, and puts his foot on it. Charlie looks away to his bloody fingers and picks at the dried blood slightly. Lawson sighed softly, and passed Charlie his suitcase. Charlie had insisted on staying in the car while Lawson went inside for what had initally been a change of clothes, but had quickly become everything he'd brought with him to Ballarat. (About one suitcase full. Some clothes, his running shoes, a framed photo of his small family, a transfer request dated the previous year, an unopened packet of cigarettes, a photo of him and his father where he appears to be about six, three casefiles marked unsolved, several books ( A mixture of pulp fiction and cheesy romance) a jar of coins and a rock that he remembered Charlie collecting because 'it looked like it had a face')
He took the handle with both hands tightly, and finally looked up. Lawson put a hand on his shoulder, but Charlie shrugged it off. He sighs softly. "I'll show you the shower." He said, leading Charlie up the stairs towards the bathroom.
Lawson's bathroom is as empty as the rest of his home. Very few personal touches. Two toothbrushes, one that Charlie thinks probably belongs to his daughter. A bottle of aftershave that makes him want to be sick. A razor. Toothpaste. Normal bathroom things that feel so incredibly foreign to him. He examines himself in Lawson's mirror. Bloodshot eyes. Thick purple smears from a chronic lack of sleep. Pale face. A bruise developing on his left cheek. A bloody handprint on his neck. He runs his hands over his face, and when he pulls them away, he's put two huge marks on his face, smeared Danny's blood over his chin. He blinks in shock and it's gone.
He turns, and starts the shower behind him. Water washes down the drain, the tub is a faded colour that was probably a tasteful yellow when the house was built. It had faded to a disgusting egg colour. The water is cold as it spashes up with the force that the showerhead spits the water out at. He's showered a million times before, so he doesn't understand why this feels so different. He slowly takes off his shoes, the black leather feels so familiar to him as the slowly sets them by the door. He walks back to the shower, and puts a hand under the cold spray.
After a moment, he steps, fully dressed, under the spray, and turns his chin up to face it. He stands like that for a minute or so, before looking down at his hands, watching the water run off of his fingers, and down the drain. A part of him wishes that he could follow it. The water must be cold, he can see goose bumps rising and his teeth click. But oddly enough, he can't feel anything at all.
…
A soft plume of smoke rises from the lake. Lawson sighed softly, and gazed out at the figure submerged up to his waist in the water. After a minute, he strips off his jumper, and shoes, before wading out after him.
After finding the room he'd set Charlie up in that afternoon empty, Lawson got Mattie and Danny (as much as he was able) to try and help him figure out where the distraught Sergeant might have gone. (Melbourne was too far, he didn't go to social events, wasn't at the station or the Blake house, hadn't come to the hospital, Dr Harvery hasn't seen him in weeks, it was like he vanished) Or it was. Until Mattie commented that she didn't know his running route. Charlie Davis had always been a keen runner. Even now.
So Lawson went back to his house, and started to canvas the area by car. Eventually, he found his way to the lake, where he saw the figure out there, up to his waist in the murky water. Recalling that this was 'his' favorite place to come and feel bad about himself. Seems only fitting Charlie would think that as well.
Stripping off his coat, Lawson dumped it into the dirt, before running into the water after him. He toes off his shoes on the sand and in his socks, he sprints out into the water. The water nips at his ankles and he splashes the water up, creating waves in the still darkness.
He reaches Davis, and stops next to him. Charlie gazes at him with watery grey eyes. The water around him had been still, but now lapped at the front of his shirt. He looked cold. His face was pale, his lips were pale, his hands were pale, like someone had desaturated him entirely. His hair looks darker. The bags beneath his eyes heavier. He looks miserable.
"Parks is going to be okay." He states. Charlie takes another drag of his cigarette and offers no reply. "He thought you got hurt. Wanted to know if you were okay." Still silent. Slightly blue lips wrap around the filter. Lawson studied his profile. "I know you're trying to do damage control. But you should go see hi. God knows what he sees in you. But it's something. He's your friend." Charlie blew smoke out his nose and looked at the dark water that surrounded them.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Lawson replied, and shook his head. He gently put a hand on Charlie's shoulder, trying to get though to him, but he shrugged it away. "Look at you." Lawson said, softly, and Charlie did turn to face him. Lawson sighed "You're a mess these days." He said, giving Charlie a slightly sympathetic look. "We all miss him...But we don't all..." Before he's allowed to finish Charlie starts talking.
"News flash, Matthew, I've always been like this." He spat. "I've always been a bad influence. I've always been reckless. I've always been dangerous. I was a mess a long time before I came to this city. But when he was here, it didn't matter." He said, "I haven't changed. You lot are the one's who's changed!" He shouted, before flinging what was left of his cigarette into the lake with as much force as he was able. "Mrs Beazley didn't hate me, Mattie didn't think I was crazy and you didn't try to act like my father!" He all but screamed. "I miss him so much." He said, "It's not my fault that you all changed." He whispered, before slowly sinking under the water. It's cold, so cold, but oddly enough, Charlie can't feel a thing.
…
He has never hated anything more then his own reflection, he decides. He watches out the hospital window. Behind him, he can hear the soft noises of Danny breathing, in front of him, the rain pounds furiously at the ground, a very good representation of how he more or less felt. It puddles on the ground, the murky water purging the pavement of it's initial impurities and replacing it with new ones. How ironic.
Between his lips, the lit end of the cigarette smoulders, and he breathes the smoke from his nose. It was quiet in here. He likes it. He always liked the quiet. In the reflection, his sleep deprived face looks nothing like the one he's come to know. Nothing like the one that the Danny would recall. His hair is a mess. He didn't shave this morning. He looks more like Danny's grieving spouse then moderately close friend.
"He'd say those things will kill you." Said a soft, raspy voice from behind him. Charlie pulled the cigarette back to his lips and said nothing at first, before scoffing.
"I'm counting on it." He replied, still not turning around to face the other police officer.
"You're still mad, aren't you? That I left without telling you..." Charlie turns this time,
"You're a grown man." He replied. "You can do what you want."
"I didn't want to drag you into that mess."
"Drag ME into that mess?" Charlie asked, after a long moment, and sighed softly. "You don't drag me anywhere. I want him back as much as you do."
"So much you'd give up your family for it." Danny sighed. Charlie scoffed again, and held his cigarette so he could stare at the burning end. It was nearly gone now. He's disgusted that he briefly considers shoving it into his eye, burning it, scarring it, ruining it. If he did that, then he would have to come back, he'd have to fix it.
But he doesn't because Mattie would be the one who has to fix him up and he can't do that to her. So he takes another drag and sighs softly. "Maybe." He admits. "But wouldn't you?" Danny shakes his head no and Charlie realizes, with a sense of dread that he's the only one who feels like that. But it's not the first time so he just keeps his mouth shut and takes a seat in the uncomfortable chair. Danny sighed softly and gazed at Charlie as he took another deep breath of his cigarette. Danny didn't try and talk to him, just lay still, and watched him.
"You're a dickhead." Charlie said, after several moments. Danny scoffed slightly, and pulled the blanket up again. "Don't do that, look at me.' Charlie said, leaning forward. "You're such a dickhead." Danny looked back at him. "You nearly died, you know that?" He demanded. "You nearly got yourself killed, for what?" He asked, "You were worried about me? What about Mrs Beazley? What about Mattie?" He demanded.
"What about you?" Danny shot back. "Why is it so impossible for you to consider that maybe people care about you?"
"Because for once in my life I don't want to talk about me!" He shouted, before remembering that he was in a hospital. "Sorry." Danny sighed again and pulled the blanket up.
"I wish I could make you understand how important you are." Charlie can't help but scoff.
"Me? The world has hundreds of cynical young police men. Needs more Danny Parks...es..." He said, clearly attempting to relieve the situation with a poor joke. Danny turned onto his side to study Charlie again. Charlie looked back at him. He took another drag of the cigarette, and then looked down at Danny.
"Your jokes are terrible." Danny offers, and Charlie just sighs with a bone deep tiredness. The sort that infects you right to the marrow and kills you from the inside out.
"I'm tired, Danny." He offers, finally. "I'm so tired of all of this."
"This?"
"You, being hurt. Me being angry..." He murmured. "I want to sleep it off. Sleep him off, like a headache or a bad cold."
"I know. But you wouldn't, would you?" Charlie shakes his head no, and looks at the end of his burning cigarette again.
"...Charlie?" Danny asked softly, as Charlie seemed to fade out and lose himself in his thoughts.
Charlie is disgusted with himself, after all he did for him, he wants to forget him? After everything that's happened, he wants to sleep him off? He's so disgusted that those thoughts could even come into his head let alone be said out loud that he wants to throw himself out the window into the rain to be baptized of the impurities If he forgets him, then who is going to remember? Who will look if he does not? The heat from the end of the cigarette is suddenly too hot to handle, searing his face, his skin with his warnings about how smoking is bad.
And then he can't hold back. He snuffs it out on his arm. He screams. He must because Lawson and Mattie are in before he's even taken it off the skin, but he can't feel anything
at
all.
…
"Am I losing my mind?" Charlie asks, as Mattie peels away the bandage from the wound.
"I don't think so. I just think you have a lot of grief and anger with no output for it."
"That sounds worse."
"I know." She said, sympathetically. "But you'll get better."
"When I find him."
"I'm not meant to encourage your delusions."
"It's not a delusion.'
"Maybe not to you." She sighed, looking up at him. She's always thought he had a kind face. The sort that you would see on a doctor, or a teacher rather then that of a police man. But the eyes were that of a police man. Grey as a knife and just as sharp. Since the 'cigarette' incident, as they were now calling it, Charlie seemed to have at least pretended to be accepting of help. He'd even willingly watched game of champions with them the previous night. (And despite his complaining the whole time about 'having things to do', she suspects he had a pretty good time) She has no idea what she can say to comfort him, so she just continue to change the bandage and get a good look at the injury.
"So tell me, why did you do this?"
"I told Danny that I wanted to move on." he said, "And then I was angry I would think that. And then I don't know...It just felt like the right thing to do." He admits, allowing Mattie to replace the gauze pad and wrap the wound again.
"Hobart says he thinks you're getting dangerous." Charlie moves his wrist away from her and puts it in his lap.
"Hobart is right." He said, before pausing for a moment, mid scoff, to frown deeply.
"What?" Mattie asked, reaching for his hands.
"Where's Lawson, did you say?"
"Livingroom, why?" Mattie asked, as Charlie was up off of his new bed and down the stairs to the sparsely decorated living room of Matthew Lawson's house.
…
"Lawson!" Charlie announced as he jogged down the stairs. Lawson looked up from his newspaper with a sigh.
"Yes, Davis?"
"I have a question, about when you came to collect Danny and I." Lawson put his news paper down and raised his eyebrow at Charlie, urging him on.
"How did you know where to find us?" Lawson paused, and gave Charlie a slightly confused look.
"Hobart told me."
"Ah!" Charlie said, suddenly. "Im starting to think I was a little to quick to judge Bill Hobart." He said, rubbing his hands together.
"Is that so?" Mattie asked, sitting next to Lawson on the couch. Charlie nods again.
"Yes it is. Now. Hobart told me to question Munro, which I did, but…."
"But?"
"He must have known we'd be there. He was probably in on it."
"You came to that conclusion pretty fast." Lawson commented.
"Well, Munro was probably involved, I know Hobart has some shady dealings, but I thought it was just tobacco." He scoffed, "I didn't think he was the sort to kidnap either. He's probably being paid."
"Maybe Danny told him?" Lawson asked, but Mattie shook her head no.
"No, he told me he didn't." Charlie scratched his head and then gazed out at Lawson's cream coloured car.
"I think I should have a chat with him."
"Well I'm coming too." Lawson said, standing up.
"Why?" Charlie demanded.
"From what Parks tells me, you need someone to be intimidating with a bat." Charlie gave him a raised eyebrow.
"You want to beat up Bill Hobart?"
"I would pay to beat up Bill Hobart." Charlie pauses, and then nods.
"Only if you get your own bat."
"Done." Lawson said, walking to get it.
"I have to come as well!" Mattie announced.
"No. No you don't." Charlie told her, shaking his head. "You can't get involved in this stuff."
"Well, tough." She decided, "I'm coming." Charlie sighed softly and shook his head , and maybe, just maybe, that might be hope rearing it's tender head someplace deep inside his chest.
…
When Hobart wakes up, the first thing that Charlie sees his eyes rest on is Lawson. Not without good reason, of course. Lawson is an imposing figure even when he's not holding a cricket bat and staring at you as if you're the scum of the earth. His eyes drift to Mattie, who's sitting on a stack of boxes filing her nails. The his eyes move to Charlie, who's standing on his own, sipping coke out of a glass bottle. Lawson speaks first "If you tell us the truth, then maybe I'll only break three limbs." Lawson offers, as Charlie doesn't offer anything at first. Hobart scoffs.
"I'm reporting this." Charlie stands up, setting his bottle down on the box he'd just been sitting on.
"You could." He agrees. "But then wouldn't that reveal some of your own goings on?" He asked. "You're not as smart as you think you are." He states. Hobart sneers again. Charlie gives Lawson a slight nod, and he smacks him across the face with the bat. Hobart coughs and moves his jaw in circles. "Let me tell you what happens now." Charlie said, cracking his knuckles. "You can tell me now, or you can tell me in three hours time after Matthew here's beaten you so badly that the only thing keeping you alive is me telling him to stop at the right time. See that's the reason I don't bring him along. Sometimes, when someone really deserves it, he finds it a bit hard to...Stop." Hobart actually looks slightly concerned, but scoffs anyway.
"As if, Davis." Charlie shrugs, and steps back, not even minding the cast off blood that lands on his face.
…
As it turns out, Hobart knew a lot more then any of them thought he did. He even (After a rather nasty blow to the chest from Lawson, ) gave them an address. The drive out to the storage lockers was long and quiet. The pain killers Mattie had given him for his wrist had long since worn off, and he was so tired. Mattie, on the other hand seemed to be shaking with excitement.
Despite having given them the his location, Hobart had not given them the location of the locker exactly. "We need to split up." Lawson decided, handing each of them a set of master keys from the owner.
"What? Why?" He asked.
"We can cover more that way." Lawson decides, as the three of them each pick an aisle to travel down. Charlie takes the one on the furtherest left, opening each locker, checking inside, and then closing it.
…
Eight lockers in, Charlie strikes gold. He flings the locker open with force, and is confronted by perhaps the best thing he's ever seen. "Lucien!" Charlie said, and the doctor looks at him, and he looks at the doctor and then Charlie breaks into a sprint. "Doc!" he said. Before he can try to hug the doctor or do anything, the doctor has his hands on Charlie's face, looking at the cast of blood, and then on his wrist.
"What have they done to you?" Blake demanded. Charlie wants to laugh and cry at the same time. So he does, and the Doctor pulls him close. He wants to say something, but he can't formulate the words. He's just so happy that Blake is alive, that he is well, that he will live, that he starts to feel everything. All at once.