/Me: Watches one episode of Glitch
Me: I have an idea.
So this little...Thing….Is based off of Salvation, so if you haven't read it...You might like to before you read this one. Sorry. Also: Note the distinct lack of violence in this fic. How incredible. Wow. Warnings: Mentioned but not graphically, domestic abuse, and fairly prevalent alcoholism. And even some Charlie/Munro b/c its my birthday next week and if I wanna pair Charlie with every man in Dr Blake...Then I will. (WIPS: Charlie's day at the Beach, Part 5: Munro, my birthday gift to myself)
"Did you paint that?" Charlie looks in to Blake with a slightly annoyed expression.
"I told you to stay out of here."
"It's my house."
"It's MY house. My name is on the deed. I'm paying off the mortgage. It's mine."
"It was mine before." Blake told him, sharply.
"I don't think that's going to stand up in court." Charlie bit back. Seemed he'd gotten a lot more bite in the past few years. Ones where Blake had been dead. Blake lifts another canvas to look at the one behind it.
"These are all very nice." he said in his annoying Blake style of cutting him off and ignoring everyone else.
"I wouldn't have kept them if they were ugly." Charlie replies, not moving away from the door frame. Blake lifts one up to have a look at it.
"Is this a portrait?" He asks, examining it carefully. Charlie doesn't reply, so he puts it up on a easel to examine it. "Very nice indeed." he said, "It almost looks..."
"Like you?"
"I was going to say that. Is it of me?"
"Yes." Charlie replied. He didn't trust this 'brought to life' Blake any more then he liked probably Munro ten years ago.
"Did...I commission an artist?"
"No." Charlie said, as Blake examined the signature.
"C Blake?"
"Well my name is Charlie Davis, so there you go. Not me."
"Not you?"
"Nope."
"You're a terrible liar."
"I'm a damn good liar and you know it." Charlie replied, as Blake continued to look at the other paintings.
"A very nice painting of Lawson."
"It's crap."
"I like it." He replied, putting it on top of the one of himself.
"So did he." Charlie replied, almost whistfully.
"So you did paint it."
"So what if I did?"
"Did you teach yourself?"
"No. You taught me."
"Me?"
"Hm." He commented.
"Why?" He asked, starting to be frustrated with how uncooperative Charlie was.
"You thought I needed a better way to express my anxieties." He said, rubbing his pale hands together.
"Sounds like something I would say."
"Because you said it. And then you died." Charlie said, looking at his fingers.
"Apparently."
"No. Not apparently. You died. I saw you, on the ground. I saw you. I watched then bury you. You died, Lucien." he said, "You were dead."
"Lucien?"
"That's your name, isn't it?" He asked.
"You never called me that before."
"Don't I? Hm." He said, softly. "Sorry."
"Don't be. I like my name."
"Good for you." Charlie said, as the doctor continued to look at his paintings.
"Do you ever sell them? Or give them away?"
"Only one. I think it hangs in the Tyneman house."
"Oh?"
"Well he doesn't know I painted it."
"Sounds like a story."
"One I am keeping to myself, if you don't mind."
"Well I do mind because if what Munro tells me is correct, you get your kicks from upsetting Tyneman."
"You spoke with William without beating him to a pulp?"
"He's special to you. I did hope you'd have slightly more faith in me then that."
"I hoped for this, you know." Charlie comments, looking into the fire. "I hoped you were still alive. I hoped you would come back."
"What changed?"
"You came back, and you can't remember the life I remember. You don't know how we used to be. What we were like."
"Danny tells me I was trouble."
"With a capital T."
"And self destructive."
"You were." Charlie said, "And so am I." He comments, "We were a great team." He said, "Lawson had no idea what to do with us."
"You stayed?"
"Even when the drinking got bad, I was still there."
"Why?"
"It wasn't all bad." He said, softly, looking into the fire."When you weren't drunk off your arse, you would teach me all your doctor things, or fix me up when I got messed up at work. We would watch TV, and talk though cases...And above all else, I just liked being with you."
"Being with me?"
"I attract borderline alcoholic men with self destructive tendencies like moths...Is that the plural, moths? To a flame."
"Me included?"
"You included." Charlie said, taking the paintings of the eseal and leaning them against the wall.
"You loved me?"
"You were easy to love." He said, softly. He looks at the painting on the eseal. "You painted that one."
"Me?"
"You died before you could finish it...So I just left it there."
"Like you did with the rest of the house?"
"Well, whatever Jack Beazley didn't take."
"Didn't take?"
"Yeah." Charlie said, "Do you know that story?" Blake shakes his head no. Charlie sighs softly, but makes no move to tell it.
"Seems I missed a lot."
"Too much." Charlie scoffed, "Because you died. I know you were dead because I saw you. I went to your funeral."
"Thing change." Blake offers.
"You are just like you used to be." He murmurs. "But I'm not."
"I can tell." Blake said, opening and smelling the bottle of scotch that has been sitting on the mattle for the whole five years since the doctor died. "A bit too much aging, I think." Charlie scoffs, but stands.
"If you're going to drink then I'm going back to bed."
"What, we never drank together?"
"No. Not really. I don't drink, but then again I didn't have to. You drank more then enough for the both of us." He said, letting out a shaky sigh and slowly rubbing his cheek.
"I didn't...Hurt..." Charlie says nothing, just moves to sit on the couch.
"It wasn't all bad." He said, after several long moments.
"I...I.." Blake said, unsure how to continue.
"Don't do that. You only did it once, then you just drank until you couldn't stand." He said, "On the seemingly fewer and fewer occasions where you weren't drunk...You were good. You were a good man." He tells Blake as the man sits next to him on the sofa. "I just liked to be with you. Near you. Around you." He murmured, looking quite fragile all of a sudden. He tilts his head onto Blake's shoulder. "Do you want to hear about the picture that hangs in Tynemans house?" Blake slowly put an arm around Charlie, and then nods.
"After you died, you left me nothing." He said, after a long moment. "Mrs Beazley was still your next of kin. Since she was dead as well, it all went to her sons. Christoper said he was fine to just give it to me, afterall, I knew this house, these were my things." He said, "Jack Beazly decided that he wanted his mum's things. I don't blame him for that." Charlie whispered, "He came after funeral, when I was home alone, and he left with a box of things. On his way out, he saw the studio. And his eyes suddenly seemed to see an exuberant amount of money. " He pauses, "And I told him that he couldn't. That those paintings belong here." Blake looks up at the paintings, and then to Charlie. "And he told me to 'go cry to my boyfriend about it.' he said. He said he was coming back with someone to value them, and if I wanted to keep living here then I should keep my mouth shut."
"I take it he didn't find out about the Davies?" Charlie shakes his head no.
"Of course not. I called Lawson that evening, and I asked him to help me hide them some place."
"And he did?" Charlie nods.
"We took them to his place, and hid them under the bed. In the wardrobe. Anywhere really. When we were done, we replaced the missing paintings with mine."
"Jack knew?"
"Of course he did. But he had no proof that I'd ever hung other paintings." He said, sounding quite proud of himself. "And he took my paintings. I signed them with your mother's name, I never signed any of them up until then." He said, looking out the window for several moments. "I hear he got a fair bit of money for them. Patrick Tyneman liked one. I think it was one depicting a flooded house." He said, looking up at the portrait of Agnes Clasby.
"And you put them all back up?" Charlie nodded.
"Mhmm." Blake chuckled softly, and smiled down at Charlie. "Beazley was furious at me, though. He took everything he thought he thought he could sell. But I didn't really mind. I already took all of your things that I wanted to keep. Clothes and the like." He offered. "He didn't take the furniture?"
"Christoper got into a fight with him about it, Lawson threatened to arrest the both of them if they didn't leave me alone...They never had time." He murmured. They sit in the quiet for a long time, until Blake is half sure Charlie had fallen asleep.
"I hated you." He whispered, after a long moment.
"When you first came to Ballarat?"
"No...No much later. Sorry. I just wanted to get that off my chest."
"Oh." Blake replied, "Because I hurt you?"
"No. Because you wouldn't listen to me. Because you were killing yourself and you didn't seem to care." He offers, "I just wanted things to be how they were." He said, softly, "And now they can't be that way ever again. I was okay on my own, and then William decided I was too alone, and now your here and I don't know what to do." He admits. "I hated you so much, but at the same time, I didn't want to let the past you go."
"So you stayed."
"So I gave up every chance I had, every chance to fall in love, to be married, to have children, and for what?" He asks, standing, and putting a clean canvas up on the easel.
"I'm sorry." He said, following Charlie with his eyes as he started to take carefully labeled paint pots on the table nearby. (Specifically, two different reds and a blue) Charlie also collected three different brushes.
"It wasn't all bad." He said, softly, as he turned the easel around so he could paint Blake himself. Blake doesn't say anything as he watches Charlie almost ruin the canvas with his heavy brush strokes and over saturation of pain. As Blake watches him paint, he can almost see a much younger Charlie, with a thick purple bruise developing on his right cheek. He can't help himself. He starts to cry a little.
"Charlie?" He looked up, as Munro gave him a somewhat bleary look. "Who are you talking to?" He asked, as he walked past the empty couch, and around behind him, looking at him paint. He'd been here with Charlie for almost six months now, and he hasn't seen him paint anything. He's painted Blake in heavy red brush strokes, one half of his face is almost totally red, with highlights done in a slightly lighter red. The background was done in a red so pale it was more like like pink, with heavier red details, depicting the room they were in. There is a single, lone, blue detail. Blue tears on his red face.
"That's your Doctor." Munro said, folding his arms.
"Hm." Charlie agrees.
"Why is he crying?"
"He's sad that he's dead."
"I would probably be a little upset if I was dead." Munro agrees. "Maybe he's sad because he'll never see your face again?" He asks, before patting Charlie on the shoulder. "Will you come back to bed?" Charlie gives him an apologetic look. Munro sighs.
"Just before I go, who were you talking too?" Charlie glances at his painting. "
"Him."