the last house at the end of the street {Daniel Webber}
A/N: 2871 words. This is for @rogerandhishair and also batnon, both of whom I love, but especially Gabs for helping me along the way and inspiring me, and yelling about Daniel a lot. Was this meant to be cabin!Daniel? Yes. But it’s lakehouse!daniel now! So part of my family is originally from Wangi Wangi, and I used to go there a lot when I was a kid, esp. around Christmas/Summer time. It’s a very chill, picturesque place. God I hope this is coherent to anyone who’s not Australian. Feedback would be great!! Fluffy As Hell and AGGRESSIVELY Australian.
“This is where horror movies happen.” You tell Daniel, the two of you stopped for lunch at a spot you’re told is only a five minute walk from the property he’d bought once he’d had the means. It’s in a place called Wangi Wangi, which you’d never heard of before, but you’d been assured that you’d love it, and, alright, looking over the sparkling water of the Lake, seeing the little boats bobbing their way across the water, the smell of the gentle breeze as it whistles softly past the native trees, you’re actually rather charmed by it. But you still can’t help yourself. “Seriously, this is where Crocodile Dundee himself crawls out of the lake to kill his helpless victims, which probably includes us.”
“Crocodile Dundee isn’t a horror movie,” Daniel tells you flatly, his lips quirked in the barest smirk, and your expression turns to a frown as you consider it. “You’re thinking of Friday the Thirteenth.”
“No, I’m thinking of... - Wolf Creek!” It’s like a eureka moment, your eyes lighting up, and oh, somehow it’s just so endearing, the light of the sun glinting off the water to highlight your smile. “I’m thinking of Wolf Creek,” you tell him with a self-satisfied conviction, going on to half-jokingly explain that ‘wolf is going to crawl out of the creek and kill us, just like in the movie’. You’re fully aware that that’s not what Wolf Creek is about, but it doesn’t really matter, because it makes Daniel laugh.
The property is the last house on the street, a dark gravel driveway leading to a spacious garage next to a handsome, red brick home. The windows are large, filling the rooms with air and light, looking out over the Lake, a view you know you could really get used to.
It’s empty, bare walls and plush, clean carpets, linoleum you’d replace with actual tiles when you get a chance. He’d always said he wanted a house by the lake, always told you how much he’d adored coming out here as a kid, and now, seeing him lean against the balcony out the back, smiling like everything was right in the world at this very moment, you can’t blame him. Wrapped your arms around him, you press a kiss to his back, between his shoulder blades, before perching your chin on his shoulder.
It’s going to end up as a holiday home, but you’re both between projects, so you’ve got the time to fix it up, to make it perfect. But for now, tonight, the first time you’ll ever sleep in this quiet little dream you’ve picked out for yourselves, you sleep on a blow-up mattress in the main bedroom, talking and laughing and dreaming up schematics in the Summer air. The window is open, and if you’re quiet, you can hear the lake lapping at the shore.
Tomorrow, you can start the process of making it perfect, but for tonight, it sort of feels like it already is.
It’s not easy work, it’s the tail-end of Summer, though February is still painful at the best of times. You’re covered in grime and grout and paint, and retiling a bathroom and a kitchen is far more involved than you’d realised. Painting room after room hurts your back, and you know that when you’re done, you still have to do the skirting boards, and replace the counter tops and furnish the whole house. You’ve got the basics, a refrigerator, and wifi, and deck chairs, though they’re uncomfortable metal fold out ones, but you get through the day, jamming out to Spotify playlists that keep your spirit up.
Naps become common, as does having at least three water bottles in the fridge at all times. Each. You’re sweaty more than you’re not, but it’s worth it, it has to be.
One particularly hot afternoon, Daniel wraps his arms around you where you’re reaching into the fridge for some cold water, and you squawk at it. You’d just been taking a break from painting the main bedroom, giving yourself a rest before powering through to the marginally-cooler night.
“I’m so gross right now,” you protest, feeling every point where your shirt is sticking to you, but he doesn’t release you from his loose grip.
“So am I,” he laughs, pressing his face to your back, wiping his grubby forehead on your back, covered in sweat and grim from where he’d been replacing the wood of the back porch. You wriggle, yelping at that, though you don’t protest, and when you shut the fridge, you turn to him with two bottles in hand. He takes the one you offer, finally letting you go, grinning from ear to ear.
“You wanna head down to the lake for a swim?” He offers, and it’s almost four in the afternoon, still feeling hotter than hell, and the lake sounds so enticing right now.
Daniel always seems to know when your mood is dipping, he takes the paintbrush or tool that you’re working with, and you want to protest, because you’ve still got some of the wall to do but -
“Tomorrow, there’s always tomorrow.” He’ll assure, and something about the way he says it eases the tense set of your shoulders. Tired and covered in paint, he’ll grab a drink for the both of you, so cold it feels like a godsend, and you’ll walk down to the shore. There’s a little, stone pier that’s a ten minute walk from your house, with other people’s overturned canoes resting in the grass nearby, and something about the sight is so full of implicit trust. You sit, side by side, on the pier, feet in the water, watching boats cross the skyline. Some days it’s clear enough that you can see Swansea on the other side.
The stress washes away with the water, leaning against Daniel, your head on his shoulder.
“I was thinking of getting, like, a dinghy or something,” he muses one evening, sunset having painted the sky lilac. You yawn, having spent the day finishing off painting the skirting boards; it meant you’d officially finished painting the house, and all that was left to do was replace the linoleum countertops in the kitchen. It had thoroughly sapped the energy from you. “Maybe not a dinghy, maybe something bigger; we could go out on the lake and swim, maybe fish, just have a time of it.” He sounded tired too, and he takes a swig of his beer before resting his head against yours. The moment hangs in the air, warm and gentle like the last rays of sunshine, and you tuck your arm into his, basking in it.
You’re rather wrapped up in refurbishing the home for the stretch of time that you spend there, you’d missed Christmas and Australia Day, and before you know it, the house is done. It smells like fresh paint and plastic from your new furniture and appliances, and you find yourself burning candles everywhere to make it smell like home.
You get used to the comforting sound of the lake, the rustle of the wind through the trees, and it becomes routine to walk through the park that borders the left of your house, going out to the picnic spot where you’d stopped that first day, overlooking the whole town and it’s surrounds. Daniel takes comfort here like you’ve never really seen him before. Seemingly stress free, he finds himself enjoying afternoons exploring the Conservation Park nearby; sometimes you join him, sometimes you take a nap, and wake up when the sun’s setting, the air’s cooling, and you find yourself with a blanket over you, and a little bunch of wild flowers on the coffee table. Daniel, you can hear, is cooking dinner in the next room, listening to music and humming along. Something about it makes your heart melt, just a little.
It seems like it’s all too soon before you’re both off again, to work on new projects, the real world calling you back, but at least now you know you’ve got this refuge when you need it.
The year drags on, and for all it’s filled with fun and achievements, you find yourself longing to go back to the little lake house.
You return just after New Year’s. It’s the middle of Summer, and this time you buy a barbecue for the back yard, and a tent, because you’ve got a beautiful park right next door, it would be a shame to under utilize it. You get to know your neighbors, the people around the street, and it’s surprising how friendly they are. You suppose you do live at the end of the road, no-one further down apart from the animals in the park, and the vacationing families in the holiday homes a few kilometers away.
Johnno, who lives four doors down, baulks when you call him Johnothan, and in the same breath invites you and Daniel to his Australia Day get-together that’s happening next week. You tentatively accept, but he seems to sense your hesitation.
“Listen, it’s just a little thing, get all the neighbors round and have a splash in the pool, get the barbie runnin’ and listen to Triple-J’s Hottest 100,” he pauses, shrugging, not even giving you time to process everything he’s said, “I don’t really go in for all that patriotism stuff, but it’s a good excuse to get everyone together, you know?” Daniel accepts with a bright smile, and Johnno’s on his merry way.
“Please tell me you understood anything he said,” you half laughed, and Daniel grins, nodding, explaining that you’d essentially been invited to a very casual lunch.
Personally, you think having a pool while living so close to a lake seems like overkill, but you wouldn’t turn down a kind invite.
“I feel like I’ve seen your face before,” Johnno’s expression is thoughtful as you and Daniel hover by the barbecue, feeling a little out of place in the spacious backyard, surrounded by people and their families. There’s kids splashing about in the pool, older women sitting on the porch under an umbrella holding glasses of champagne, and men scattered about, talking to each other like old friends. Johnno, for his part, is diligently sweating away, cooking enough sausages to feed a small army, with plates piled high of more food to be added when there’s room. He’s not even wearing an apron, just a pair of board shorts, wielding a pair of tongs with one hand, a beer in the other.
Daniel laughs a little at that, the sound warm and good natured, and a woman comes out of the house holding a bowl of freshly tossed salad.
“Jen, babe, where have we seen him before, he’s got a face I recognise,” Johnno asks, and the woman, Jen, joins him after putting the salad on the fold out table that had been set-up beside the barbecue. She frowns for a little, but it’s not unkind, and Daniel beats them to it.
“I was on Home and Away a couple of years ago.”
And both their faces light up, talking over each other with their own realisations as they nod, agreeing that that’s where he’d seen them. It’s slow at first, once Jen leaves to head back inside, a few of the people who come out after her, carrying drinks of their own, or more food for the table, they give you and Daniel an appraising look. As time passes, it seems the news of a celebrity in their midst spreads to the rest of the gathered neighbors, though it just means that everyone’s more excited to talk to them, well Daniel, than they were before.
“He’s the cute one from Teenage Kicks,” a teenage girl whispers a little too loudly to her friend, maybe her sister, while they’re all lining up for food. Daniel tries to hide his smile and pretend like he didn’t hear them, stepping up, grabbing himself a paper plate, and collecting food.
“I feel like they’re too young to have seen that,” he mutters to you, though he’s grinning a little, and you can’t help your own smile at his amusement.
Soon enough, just like you’d watched earlier, the others start to talk to the two of you like you’re old friends, but Daniel never leaves your side. You’re a little bit surprised at how much you find you’re enjoying yourself. You and Daniel take up residence on a set of banana lounges beneath an umbrella. At one point, he goes to get the both of you new drinks, giving you a quick kiss on the forehead before he goes, and you’re pretty sure you actually hear the two teenage girls give a dreamy sigh from where they’d been trying to inconspicuously watch the two of you. While you found it a little strange, they obviously meant no harm by it, and when you smiled at them, they both averted their gazes quickly, embarrassed at getting caught.
The whole day feels surreal, like a moment from someone else’s life, where the sky is always blue, and grilled pineapple is a delicacy, and it feels like a home away from home.
You don’t stay long; his shooting schedule for his next project has him in America in late February, and your own project is set to enter pre-production only a few weeks after; you’re sad to leave the haven of the lake house, but excited to say goodbye to the heat of the Australian Summer.
Every so often, you get invited to neighborhood events, usually by Johnno or Jen, though you’ve actually kept up communications with a few people from around the neighborhood, having enjoyed that Summer afternoon too much to let the people you’d met go completely.
You return sooner than anticipated, at the start of July, the two of you having a few weeks off and wanting to see what the property was like in the Winter, out of sheer curiosity.
It’s absolutely freezing. The wind cools as it crosses the lake, and chills you to the bone. It’s only made bearable when you and Daniel wrap yourselves in various duvets, curled up on the sofa you’d bought for the porch, drinking hot drinks and enjoying the view as much as you could. You think you prefer the view in the Summer, everything seems that little bit more gold around the edges, but here, now, he wraps his arm around you, lets you wrap yourself up against him.
“We should bring people out here,” he muses, breath warm against your cheek, a small comfort on this overcast evening, “like friends and stuff, ‘nd family. In Summer of course.”
“Spring,” you suggest, “before it gets too hot.” He nods, but doesn’t answer for the crack of thunder that rumbles ahead of you, and the two of head inside quickly before being pelted with rain. The rain itself sets the atmosphere nicely when you head back inside, curling up on the sofa, planning on who you could invite to your little lakeside paradise.
Bit by bit, as you collect memories in the house, you collect knicknacks, and then there’s photos on the wall, and props from projects on display, and you have friends and family around, you invite the neighbors for a barbecue of your own, and then there’s little scratches and knocks along the walls, and someone spilled something on the carpet that didn’t manage to come out entirely, but you find that you sort of love it. It feels lovely.
There’s a little yacht docked to the bigger pier that’s only about a twenty minute walk from your home, but it’s yours. The guest room is always neat when a friend comes to stay. In 2019, you politely decline the invite to ‘Johnno and Jen’s annual Australia Day Shindig’, you tell them you have family plans. In a sense, you’re not lying; you have the other three stars of The Dirt over for Australia Day, and they make themselves at home on your sofa, on your spare bed, on a blow-up mattress. There’s something freeing about the lake house, about being away from prying eyes, and while you watch the boys toss themselves into the water from the yacht, you feel contentment spreading from the warmth in your chest to the tips of your fingers.
You have your own little barbecue that evening, everyone still in board shorts, hair curling from the salt water and sitting around the back porch. Colson’s singing along to half of the Hottest 100 as it plays from your bluetooth speaker, and later, you’ll all watch the fireworks over the water. Daniel seems in his element, grinning from ear to ear as you’re all discussing your upcoming projects, how they’re all looking forward to the The Dirt premiere in only a few months. Iwan’s got a few television opportunities, Douglas is going to be doing some philanthropy, and Colson’s got his album coming out soon. Both you and Daniel have films going into production in the near future, and you can see him regarding his friends with a quiet pride.
This is what had been missing, you realise.
The house was finally perfect.
