Fic: Getting Up (12/12)

Jan 16, 2009 14:18


Fic: Getting Up (12/12)
Authors: muses-circle and Pen37
Series: Slayer!Chloe
Beta: muses-circle
Fandoms: Supernatural, Smallville, Buffy/Angel Verse
Pairing: Chloe/Dean
Rating: Pg-13
Wordcount: 1,299
Summary: Chloe has left the relative safety of the Winchester's company. But she may regret it when she's stalked by a former Slayer who is now of the fanged persuasion.

A/N: Yes, we've finally reached the end of this fic.  I'll start posting the next in the series, Moving On, on Mondays and Fridays as soon as Muses_cirlces is done with the final read through.

Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch.8, Ch. 9, Ch. 10, Ch. 11, Ch. 12


Chloe was still up in the Dojo of Doom, as Ava had dubbed the attic training facility, when the brunette climbed the stairs with a black bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other.

Chloe looked up from the weapons that she'd been dusting and sorting into two piles: mastered weapons, and need to learn.

Some things like the crossbows and the English short sword, she was already pretty good at. Others, like the Sai and Katana, she was going to have to find a Karate instructor and run through the basics. She was most excited about the set of sharpened escrima sticks that she'd found. They looked like she'd be able to administer a heck of a beat down on something with them before staking it.

“You like Tequila Rose?” Ava's voice cut into Chloe's thoughts.

She looked up at Ava and nodded. “I prefer good Irish whisky, but tequila will do in a pinch.”

Ava sat cross-legged across from Chloe and poured her a glass. “Sorry we don't have the ice for margaritas.”

“It's fine,” Chloe said. She took a drink and winced at the taste.

“So . . . you do this for a living?” Ava asked.

“Living is debatable,” Chloe to another big drink from her glass. “There's not a lot of pay in being a hero.”

“You're telling me,” Ava said bitterly. She drained away the liquid from her own glass until the level matched Chloe's.

“Hey, slow down,” Chloe said as she put a warning hand on Ava's arm. “Don't try to match me drink for drink. I've got an increased metabolism. It's hard for me to get drunk.”

“Must be nice,” Ava groused.

Chloe made an affirmative grunt and then took another sip from her drink, covertly using the action to observe her newest cohort. The short brunette would have been pretty - if not for the lines of bitterness around her eyes and mouth.

“So how'd you get into saving people?” Chloe asked casually.

Ava looked at her and shrugged. “I started having these dreams. And then they started coming true. I guess . . . I wanted them to be coincidences. So I tried to prove to myself that was all that they were.”

She sat her glass down carefully, tilted her head sideways and looked at Chloe. “So I had this dream where some guy was hit by a buss. When I woke up, I went to the street corner where it happened. I was going to wait there all day if I had to. But . . . I didn't have that long to wait.”

The brunette chuckled mirthlessly. Her eyes narrowed and she leaned forward.

“What happened?” Chloe asked.

“He was reading a book. Not even paying attention to his surroundings. He was just going to walk out in front of a buss.” She compressed her lips and shook her head. “Moron! So I grabbed him by the collar and stopped him.

“Dude never knew how close he came to dying.” She picked up her glass and finished it off. “After that I couldn't just ignore the dreams and let people die.”

“Where did the handcuffs come in?” Chloe asked.

Ava traced the rim of her empty glass with her index finger. “No one believed me when I tried to explain,” she said. “It got to be easier when I didn't explain.”

Chloe nodded in understanding. Ava looked like she'd been alone for a very long time. Chloe could relate. If not for finding spike, and then later the Winchesters and the Scooby gang, she might be in the same boat. Maybe this was the chance to return the favor. Or pay it forward, or something.

“So . . . Do you have a place to stay?”

“Crappy motel,” Ava said.

“You could stay here.”

She looked at Chloe, and then raised an eyebrow.

“Seriously.” Chloe nodded encouragingly. “You have dreams that can save people. I'm in the business of saving people. Maybe . . . we could help each other.”

Ava favored her with another incredulous look. “Are you for real?”

“What?” Chloe blinked.

“You're like a girl scout in black leather. What's that about?”

Chloe leaned over on one elbow and tipped the last of the bottle into her glass. “Before I got chosen for this, I used to know hero types. I had a friend who saved people - saved me, in fact -- and took zero credit for doing it.”

The blonde slayer shrugged. “I dunno. Somewhere along the way, I just lost sight of who I was. Now - I think I'd like to be that person again.”

“So was that friend of the boy persuasion?” Ava asked slyly.

Chloe's eyes widened as she sucked Tequila down her windpipe. She sat up, coughing and spluttering and using the hem of her shirt to soak up the alcohol.

“I'll take that as a yes,” Ava said dryly.

“No,” Chloe said. “Not Clark. Well, maybe I wanted that back when we were kids. But I kind grew out of it eventually. I did have a friend of the boy persuasion - I'm babbling. Why am I babbling?”

“Slayer metabolism my ass,” Ava said. “You my friend, are a chatty drunk.”

“You may be right,” Chloe said slowly. “Beer bad. But tequila evil.”

“So what happened to the friend-y boy?”

Chloe pulled her knees to her chest, and rested her chin on them. “It's complicated.”

“One of those,” Ava nodded. “Me too. Mine was all: I can't handle dating the mad handcuffer.”

“Dean was --” Chloe worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She hadn't planned to get into this, but now that she had, the words came pouring out. “Dean was special. You don't meet guys like him. I mean, my life was weird before the slayer thing. Even then, guys overlooked me. But he saw me, weird destiny and everything.”

“So what happened?” Ava asked.

“I guess we were too much,” Chloe said mournfully. “I was too self-righteous, headstrong and bitter. He was too suspicious and closed off. We both said too many words we couldn't take back and caused too much hurt to fix. In the end, I did what I do best: I took off.

“Maybe if I'd been that person I was before I became the slayer - We could have fixed things instead .”

“That sucks,” Ava said. Then she slid onto her back.

“Big time,” Chloe agreed. Absently, she picked up the bottle and balanced it on one finger.

Now that she'd pulled Dean's memory out of the box, she could see with hindsight that she'd behaved badly. Yes, Dean and Sam had shut down her investigation - after Sam had asked her for help. But she'd been the one to take it as a personal rejection.

She could have been adult about things. God knows she'd stopped pursuing avenues of investigation before on nothing more than Clark's say-so. But at the time, she'd still been raw from her dad's death. Having them shut her out from their personal history like she was a stranger had just made her feel alone, and she'd lashed out based on that feeling.

Now that she had space from the situation, she could see that their defensive reaction hadn't been the rejection she'd thought it was at the time.

She sat the bottle down and fought back tears.

On the floor next to her, Ava began to snore.

Chloe thought that maybe sleeping was a good idea. She was definitely drunk, and had moved from the chatty stages to the depressed ones. It would be better to go to sleep, than to call up Clark, Lois or Dean and cry into the phone.

With that in mind, she lay down, and willed herself to sleep.

getting up, slayer!chloe verse, chloe/dean

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