Chapter Text
The years after Silas pass quickly, most of the old gang choosing to settle in southern Ontario, near Laf and Perry’s hometown. Danny begins working as an English teacher and basketball coach at a local center for juvenile delinquents. Laf works at a lab a few towns over, doing experimental biomedical technology. It’s a fascinating job, and Laf eventually branches off into their own projects, often involving supernatural creatures.
Perry works from home, teaching courses in German to homeschooled students online. She and Danny bond over the ridiculous things their students hand in, and when Laf and Perry move out of the apartment and into a house on the edge of town, Danny follows, living in the upstairs of an old warehouse across the street. She helps Perry clean up the kitchen on nights when Laf stays too late at the lab, and gives Laf space to do science experiments in her kitchen when Perr has put her foot down about the ‘no science in my kitchen rule’. Soon Danny has become a daily part of their lives, and when Laf and Perry (With assistance from Danny and JP) finish renovating the basement apartment, they offer her a place to stay.
Danny declines, choosing instead to save the basement apartment for Carmilla and Laura, when they visit, and JP, when he chooses to live with them. And they continue, Danny spending more time with them than in her own apartment, and helping to keep an eye on JP, as he attempts to adjust to the twenty-first century. Laf and Perry keep tabs on Laura and Carmilla, and hold them to their promise to visit at least twice a year. It’s difficult though, and even with Danny’s assistance they only know as much as Carmilla and Laura want them too. The three of them try to respect their friends choices, and things get better after a few years, Laura and Carmilla staying the basement apartment for a few weeks in winter and summer, satisfying Carmilla’s desire for Laura’s safety, and Laura’s need for a taste of the seasons she had grown up with.
After a bad shoulder fracture from an ill-conceived dare, Danny moves into the spare bedroom of the house. They soon fall into a comfortable routine, Danny and Perry cooking and cleaning in the early mornings and evenings when Laf is at the lab, and Danny and Laf taking weekend trips to investigate the bizarre occurrences in the area, from possible ghost sightings to something that looks suspiciously like JP ran into a bear and panicked.
Even after Danny’s arm is healed, she keeps living there, helping with the bills as Laf switches jobs to work at a different, slightly more covert lab, and Perry goes back to school, and begins doing freelance editing work in her spare time.
And when it happens, they almost don’t notice.
All three of them are snuggled up on the futon in the living room, stretched out under layers of blankets for their traditional Friday night movie night. Tonight’s pick is “Fried Green Tomatoes”, which Laf enjoys for Frank Bennet’s grisly but well deserved demise, and Perry loves for Ruth’s sweetness. Tonight Danny is just grateful for the warm blankets around her, soothing the ache from the bruises she had gotten breaking up a fight at school that week.
When it comes time for them to separate and head to their rooms, they don’t move, they just scoot closer to each other in the November chill. Laf wraps their arms around Perry, and Danny curls around both of them. The cold air, and the warmth under the blankets puts the three of them to sleep quickly, tangled together in a pile.