penance

Reccing Note: Something happy you say? This is the continuation to the very amazing leap. I asked for this, too. I'm shameless. If its possible for the relationship between Chloe and Davis to have grown more since leap, it happens. And its so very beautiful.

davis pov.
3617 words. PG/PG-13. post-leap.
by paraxdisepink at her lj.

“You know,” Chloe paused in her vigorous potato peeling, “Clark used to do that for me at superspeed.”.



Painting had to be one of the suckier tasks on the planet. Heavy lifting he could do, the yearly physical for his job – pick a hundred-and-fifty pounds off the floor and carry a two-hundred pound dummy up a flight of stairs – but standing on a ladder edging with a tiny brush trying not to get Cranberry Zing on Chloe’s Swiss Coffee ceiling? That was tiring, and he hadn’t gotten to the roller yet.

Of all the colors in those millions of swatches, Chloe had to pick the richest, trendiest red, and damn the stuff went on bright. One little mistake, one crooked piece of taping or slip of the brush and Mediterranean flare would end up looking more like a crime scene. Thank God he didn’t have to attempt any DYI faux-finishing.

It was only one wall, the backdrop behind her dining room table, but so far the prep and edgework had taken two hours and they were running out of time.

Chloe didn’t seem too concerned with the ticking clock, or whether or not the place smelled like paint even with every window wide open in the place. She kept smiling at him from the other side of the kitchen counter, pleased with the sight of him reaching up with a paintbrush in a dirty, shrunken white t-shirt. Whatever made her happy, he shook his head, as long as he didn’t have to stand up here naked with a tool belt.

“You know,” Chloe paused in her vigorous potato peeling, “Clark used to do that for me at superspeed.”

Clark. Davis turned away so she couldn’t see the face he made. Considering what that guy had done to her he didn’t get why she would let him set foot in her apartment later tonight. Her cousin Lois, he could understand. Family was family. But Clark? Then again Lois and Clark were a two-for-one deal these days, apparently.

Chloe was only teasing him though, and maybe it was good she could joke about Clark now. In the month they’d been together Davis had seen her cry over him, seethe, listen to his phone messages that she never answered with an empty look in her eyes, and no wonder seeing as how he’d planned to leave her an empty shell of herself. It’d taken a lot for her to invite Lois over for dinner, to let someone from her old life into this new one where she’d created stability and control, and he doubted the fact Lois and Clark were together made it any easier.

Any hurt on that account didn’t bother him. Over the past few weeks, he’d gotten the run-down on her former life in bits and pieces. Chloe had loved Clark for a long time. She would never stop caring about him. But somewhere along the line she’d realized it would never work – probably after watching him go for every woman in his life but her. Being the back-pocket girl got tiring. That was something else Davis didn’t get. Who had someone like Chloe and went looking elsewhere? The guy didn’t know what he had.

Davis smiled at her over his shoulder, her blond hair glowing under the recessed light. Chloe wasn’t much for cooking – her staple diet consisted of coffee and muffins unless you fixed her something green and leafy – but she’d got it into her head that everything had to be right tonight. Thus the painting, the elaborate meal, his presence . . .

“There’s something to be said for a guy who takes his time,” he muttered, dipping the brush into the bucket.

Chloe giggled. Her happy giggle. She was oddly serene about tonight, considering. He felt bad; a small, selfish part of him wished no one was coming over and there was no wall to paint or dinner to cook so he could pick her up, set her down somewhere halfway comfortable, and . . . It wasn’t like he wanted all her attention and had to be the only thing in her life. It wasn’t like that at all. Sometimes though, he missed that feeling of completeness when he wasn’t warm and wrapped up in her, lost in the best of ways. Sometimes he felt like something was tearing him in half when he took his arms from around her and got up to get ready for work in the morning. Then he’d think about what he’d been, and it fit. It was less than he deserved.

He got down from the ladder and broke out the roller, poured paint into the pan, and went for it on the wall. The color had darkened to what she wanted where he’d already worked, but the new stuff, the splashes of bright red on stark white . . . He squeezed his eyes shut. The room got hotter and they came back, the images. Blood all over the ambulance, all over him. The body, or what was left it.

Davis threw the roller onto the drop cloth. He couldn’t breathe.

“Hey . . .” Chloe came up behind him. He hadn’t realized he’d sunk to the floor. She put her hands on his shoulders and studied the patches of red on white. She knew what was wrong. “We could paint that a different color,” she offered, her voice soft and full of hurt to see him like this.

He could barely handle that. He shook his head and pried her hands from him. Gently. Now he’d gone from blackouts to panic attacks. It wasn’t the first time, and he was starting to wonder if he needed Xanax or something to make them stop. But Xanax did nasty stuff, and it wasn’t right to pop a pill and block out what that thing had done whenever living with himself got too hard. The people its victims had left behind didn’t get that luxury. He’d thought about asking Chloe to help him track down some names, but in the end it all felt useless.

Chloe was staring at him, her green eyes round with worry. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and snapped himself out of it.

“No.” He got up. “No, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s just . . .”

Chloe liked red, and it was her apartment. He didn’t expect her to give up anything for him. It wasn’t her fault he was messed up.

He retrieved the roller, and went back at the wall with a little more force than necessary.

**

He’d showered, changed, and sautéed eight chicken breasts by the time Clark’s red truck pulled into the parking lot out front. Davis glanced toward the bathroom, where Chloe was doing something fairly time-consuming with her hair that involved a spray-in product and a flat iron – which was odd because it came out in short, great big curls. At the moment, Davis didn’t care if she was dying it purple; he didn’t want to be the one to answer the door.

“Chloe . . . “ he called out when Lois stepped out of the car, rummaging in the drawer for the salad tongs. Clark followed on the driver’s side, holding the door open for someone else to slide out after him. Another guy – red hair, slender, about six feet tall. Davis turned away from the kitchen window.

Oh shit.

“Chloe!”

She came out putting her earring on, and took a look outside for herself when she read the anxiety in his face. “Oh my god!” She pushed her hair behind her hair, turning her back to the window in the same way he had done, practically radiating guilt and panic.

Davis looked down at her where she stood against his shoulder. “You didn’t tell them about us.” Why else would they bring Jimmy? Knowing Lois, she’d cooked up a scheme to bring him tonight in the hopes of getting the two of them back together.

Chloe flailed inwardly, stuck her lip out, and put a hand on his arm when she got a grip on herself. “Davis, I don’t need anyone’s approval or permission to be with you,” she insisted a little more defensively than she had to. “You’re a part of my life now and they have to accept it.”

He didn’t ask if his presence was some kind of carefully orchestrated payback for Lois dating the guy she’d loved. He knew better than to go down the ugly road of wondering whether he was the rebound guy, so he nodded and handed her the salad tongs.

“I didn’t think they’d bring Jimmy,” she went on. “I mean . . .”

She didn’t have to finish. Davis knew how she must feel, cooking dinner with the guy who’d put her husband in the hospital. Losing the girl you loved was hard enough without throwing salt on the wound and he’d gotten the impression Jimmy hadn’t taken her leaving well. Davis opened his mouth to say he could hide under the bed if that made tonight easier for her, but the door bell rang before he got the chance.

“Okay,” Chloe steeled herself with a deep breath and straightened her hair again. “Everyone’s just going to have to be an adult.”

Davis knew he should try to comfort her, reassure her, or at the very least agree, but he walked with her to her front door with what felt like lead in the pit of his stomach, and when the door opened he didn’t see a friend, and ex, and Chloe’s cousin; he saw three people that would probably emphatically agree he was better off dead.

Clark’s mouth was the first to fall open, his blue-green eyes shooting past Chloe and fixing on Davis, hard. “Davis,” he said with the expected contempt. “What are you doing here?”

He swallowed. He wanted to grab Chloe in case Clark got it into his head she needed another memory reboot for her own good. But he kept his hands at his sides. Lois and Jimmy likely didn’t know about Clark’s little executive decision, and coming off like a possessive jerk wouldn’t help Davis’ case any.

Chloe drew herself up, something she did surprisingly well considering how everyone else in the room towered over her. “Davis and I have been . . . seeing each other,” she announced with very little faltering.

Pretty mild way of putting it. He stayed over most nights and paid for the groceries. Clark caught on, and his expression went from too-pretty farm boy to a hard mask. “How long has this been going on?”

Chloe made to answer, but Lois glared at him before she could. “Oh chill out, Smallville, it’s just Davis. It’s not like Chloe’s shacking up with a serial killer.” She grinned triumphantly when Clark looked ready to swallow his tongue and turned back to the two of them. “So what’cha been doing these days, Dimples – besides my cousin?”

Davis stared at her in disbelief. Not the classiest thing to say in front of Jimmy. In fact, it was worse than that time she’d stabbed him. In her own way, the woman was just as scary normal as when she’d been possessed by his mother.

Chloe, face red, cleared her throat. “Why don’t you guys come in and sit down,” she offered more steadily than he could have managed at the moment.

All this time Jimmy didn’t say a word.

They ate at her new square table once the bread finished baking, Chloe at the head and Davis at her right, facing Lois and Clark who sat side-by-side. Jimmy sat at the foot, that deep red wall behind him. He showed no sign of his injuries, no sign he was on anything, none of that stoned out of his mind watch the ceiling fan spin for an hour vicodin look. Chest wounds were a bitch to heal. It was a wonder he didn’t get hooked on the stuff. But that rich red color . . . Davis closed his eyes. He had no memory of tearing him open, but he could imagine it, the blood leaking out, the pain, Chloe terrified . . . And Jimmy had no idea he was sitting across from the guy who’d done it, passing him the salad bowl like nothing.

He opened his eyes when he felt Chloe’s hand on his arm. Lois and Clark were staring at him.

“You okay there, Dimples?”

Davis blinked. Lois looked genuinely concerned, but . . . He wondered if he’d ever get comfortable around her. He made himself nod. “Yeah. Yeah I’m –“

“The paint smell,” Chloe broke in for him. “It gives him a headache.”

Clark rolled his eyes, unconvinced, but he seemed determined not to piss off my Chloe by pressing. In fact, he turned the conversation to asking about her job and her new life with special warmth, a guy who wanted real bad for a woman not to be angry with him anymore.

Chloe answered him, but with something short of her usual enthusiasm when talking about articles and investigations. Lois chimed in, babbling about strange events in Metropolis and a mystery hero. Davis couldn’t believe it. She didn’t know about Clark. How did you have a relationship with someone you couldn’t tell the truth to? How did you even have a conversation? He looked at Jimmy across the table, against that backdrop of deep red. Chloe had lived her life like that, so had he to some extent. It was a wonder they hadn’t all lost their minds.

He turned on the basketball game for Clark and Jimmy when dinner was done, when Lois and Chloe went off to investigate every new thing in her closet, talking in low voices. Clark didn’t drink, but Jimmy took a beer, and not knowing what else to do Davis sucked it up and sat on the couch with him.

Jimmy didn’t look up from the game until Clark went to the bathroom.

“So you ran off with my girl. After you brought her home that time I didn’t think you were that kind of guy.”

Okay. He deserved that – He deserved a lot from Jimmy – but Chloe didn’t. And “his girl” had a name. “Look, she’s not a possession.” That didn’t help. Jimmy didn’t look any less wounded or accusing. Davis sighed and tried again. “I doubt Chloe’s leaving had anything to do with me. Honestly, I think she thought she was doing the right thing by you, and from what I can see she did.”

He couldn’t say anymore without touching on all that had happened to Chloe over the past few months, the mounds of secrets she kept. Jimmy wouldn’t believe him anyway; he blew him off with a “yeah right” and took Clark’s place now that the bathroom was free.

Clark took his turn while he was scraping dirty plates into the garbage disposal, setting his on top of the stack Davis had made, as good excuse as any to get in his space.

“So you’ve got Chloe convinced you’re a good guy now.” He looked him over with eyes that had gotten a lot harder since they’d first met. He didn’t see a person, just the disguise that thing had left behind, like a snakeskin, something hollow that had no life of its own. Davis swallowed. He felt that way more often than not, but Chloe always pointed out that a mask didn’t feel guilt or pain, and God help him he lived and breathed both.

He didn’t back up. It was just instinct, something picked up real fast from living on the street. When another guy got in your face you didn’t back up. You didn’t play games either.

“Look, Clark, I know you don’t trust me, and that’s fine. But I gotta tell you I’m not exactly thrilled Chloe’s giving you the time of day either.”

That threw him off balance. He actually looked hurt – that someone would throw what he’d done in his face or that Chloe had confided in another guy Davis didn’t know. It didn’t matter; it only lasted a moment. “I did what I had to protect her,” he shot back, then turned the conversation around again. “If you ever hurt her . . .”

“You’ll what?” Kill him? Again? Could he blame him? In his own clueless way Clark cared for Chloe too. He scraped Clark’s plate off and nodded. “Please do.”

By the time dessert rolled around Chloe and Lois were the only ones talking.

**

“That went well, don’t you think?” Chloe said a little too cheerfully once everyone had gone.

Davis shook his head, loading dirty plates into the dishwasher. “Yeah,” he said dryly, “Clark and I didn’t kill each other, Lois didn’t stab me, and for an added bonus I didn’t put Jimmy in the hospital. It’s a start.”

“Davis . . . “ She wanted to laugh. He knew she did, but she couldn’t let herself because none of it was funny, and he got it; his gloominess frustrated her at times.

He put the last fork in the dishwasher and pushed the thing shut, exhausted after working twelve hours yesterday and getting up at eight in the morning to spackle, paint, and help cook. He wasn’t complaining. It felt good to be tired from honest work. It felt clean, human, better than walking around like a zombie after forcing himself to stay awake all week so he didn’t blackout and kill anyone.

Chloe followed him into the living room, settling onto the couch and slipping off the torture devices women called shoes. But she hadn’t come to sit down and rest after standing all day, not with that determined look on her face. She had something to say.

“You know, Davis,” she began with her hands folded in her lap. “I know you could have worked tonight. It would have been okay. Don’t get me wrong,” she rushed to add, laying a hand on his arm. “I’m really, really glad you’re here, but . . . I would have understand if you didn’t want to put yourself through this.”

He put his hand over hers without thinking about it, just a reflex. “I’m not like that, Chloe,” he shook his head. “Leave you by yourself so I don’t have to face people and feel guilty, pretend the past never happened.” He knew she felt just as guilty as he, about Jimmy anyway, and she was better than sinking to Clark’s level, lying and keeping whole chunks of her life from people she called friends. Davis didn’t say the last part though.

Chloe wet her lips. “I know. It’s just . . .” She glanced over her shoulder at the dining room behind them, too observant to miss him staring at her red wall all night, the one he’d refused to paint over. “You don’t have to punish yourself every five minutes. I see you do it, and . . .”

Davis looked away. Maybe she was right. But he didn’t know how to explain; the happier she made him the more paranoid he got about not letting himself off the hook, because honestly he could have easily forgotten what he’d been two seconds after she’d touched her mouth to his for the first time. He didn’t dare tell her that, not yet. It’d probably scare her off.

Having spoken her piece, she got up to finish rinsing pans in the kitchen, but he caught her around the waist before she could get very far. She was pretty content to let him pull her down beside him and put his arms around her, curling against his chest and smiling. He put his feet up on the coffee table, and after a few moments of peaceful silence prompted, “So . . .? Seeing Clark and Jimmy again . . .?” She couldn’t just sum up the evening in one light-hearted little comment and not say another word. That was exactly what she’d do if he let her.

Chloe bit her lip, thoughtfully, and didn’t look especially tormented. “I used to watch him with Lana and feel like I was missing a part of myself, like if he’d just turn around and realized he felt that way about me instead I’d be complete.” She frowned, then smiled at him. “Funny how that changes when you take a step back.”

He grinned and nodded. She didn’t need Clark, or any guy who didn’t know what he had. She was amazing all by herself. But Chloe wasn’t done.

“That reminds me,” she went on in a quieter voice. “There’s something I never told you. It’s kind of . . .” She stared down at the couch, and he braced himself. Between mass-murdering, coming back from the dead, and having dinner with an alien, he never knew what would come next. But Chloe was blushing when she looked up, and he got that this wasn’t the paranormal kind of something. “This is kind of awkward but, and it wasn’t Jimmy’s fault, it’s just . . .” She smoothed her hair and took a deep breath. “I once told Lana my first time with Jimmy wasn’t special – it wasn’t anything he did or didn’t do, just . . . Well it was – is. With you. You know?”

That caught him off guard. A normal person would melt to hear a thing like that from the girl he loved, but he felt like he could crack to pieces. He smiled at her – one of his few real smiles – and if he hugged her any closer he’d probably bruise her.

“Yeah,” he nodded hard, his voice a little rough. “Yeah I do, Chloe. Of course I do.”

She made a contented sound and twisted so she fit perfectly against him, resting a hand on his chest. Maybe she thought he was punishing himself again not taking this any further, but he didn’t know how to say that sitting like this, with her close and warm beside him was the most indulgent thing he’d ever allowed himself to do.

~ the end

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