FIC: Ghost Rider: Merry Christmas Darling
Title: Merry Christmas Darling
Author: Ghani Starkiller @ mrs_peel_fanfic
Disclaimer: Ain't mine, characters and situations belong to Marvel and the filmmakers; Karen Carpenter belongs to Heaven.
Rating: PG-13-ish
Characters: Johnny/Roxanne
Warnings: Spoilers for the movie obviously, some sappy romance
Summary: Johnny spends a lonely Christmas Eve dreaming of the day he can finally come home to celebrate with Roxy.
Written for: jadeblood as a Christmas prezzie. This one's for you, darlin'!
A/N: Wasn't originally going to be Christmas themed but I happened to hear The Carpenters' "Merry Christmas Darling" on the radio while I was thinking of writing and got to thinking about how that was probably Johnny's favorite Christmas song and then the lyrics just really wrote the story for me! It also occured to me how hilarious it would be to do a version of A Christmas Carol with the Ghost Rider character...Maybe another day... ;-)
Greeting cards have all been sent
The Christmas rush is through
But I still have one wish to make
A special one for you
Johnny Blaze sat at the bar, one hand laying flat on the countertop beside his ginger ale; the other, gripping a pen, was poised over the blank interior of a greeting card. It didn’t contain any mean-spirited pun or abusive comment disguised as a joke, no mildly veiled enmity about the receiver’s age or weight; Johnny didn’t hold to that kind of thing. He’d found a simple little card with a picture of a monkey in a Santa hat at a rest stop along a long stretch of road in the Mojave and he’d snatched it up ‘cause, hell, monkeys were always funny, everyone knew that!
There was no schmaltzy sentiment inside either; Johnny firmly believed that anything worth saying to someone was worth saying right, in your own words, with your own heart. And that was just his problem: He was having trouble finding the words to say exactly what it was he wanted to say. The more he stared, the harder it became to think; his eyes ached and he saw white whenever he blinked.
He sighed, laying the pen aside. A lonely old roadhouse in the middle of the desert was hardly the ideal place to be celebrating Christmas Eve. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few of wrinkled dollar bills and some spare coins, placing them on the bar as he settled his cowboy hat on his head and tugged on the brim. “Merry Christmas,” he told the barman in his lazy drawl. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks, man.” The guy behind the counter, a burly, tattooed Amerindian, grinned sincerely, revealing several missing teeth. “And Merry Christmas, brah.” He plucked a candy cane from a jar on the bar and threw it to Johnny, who caught it in one hand, smiling down at it nostalgically; he hadn’t had one of these things in forever. He peeled back the cellophane and stuck it in the corner of his mouth like a cigar.
It was a short walk back to his motel room, kicking up a cloud of sand with the steel toes of his boots. The proprietor had begun his celebration early and was now dozing on his desk beside the glow of a miniature Christmas tree, an empty bottle of brandy in his hand. A carton of eggnog sat nearby, untouched; the old man had offered him some earlier and he had declined, and Johnny guessed he’d skipped the holiday-specific part and had gone right for the jolly when he’d found no one to make merry with.
Johnny just shook his head and strolled to his cabin door. He switched on the small TV as he closed the door behind him. ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ was playing on one channel. Johnny pulled a face and turned the channel; the last thing in the world that he needed at the moment was a message of self-sacrifice shoved down his throat. It’s one thing to go around preaching it to other people; that was just plain irritating and obnoxious. Doing’s another.
He sighed, kicking off his boots and lying back on the mattress his head, the back propped atop his folded arms, resting against the pillows. The old-fashioned string of colored bulbs lining the porch roof outside of the window cast festive shadows in the darkened room. He clicked the television off and switched the clock radio on the nightstand on, turning the dial until he found a station playing Christmas tunes. His hand brushed the blank greeting card sheepishly and he regarded it again with tired eyes.
He’d spent so many Christmases after his daddy died in voluntary solitude with only Mack and his famous beer can tree for occasional company. And then this year, the one year that there the someone special he ached to celebrate with was also the one year that momentous and grave obligations were keeping him away from the warm and inviting draw of home and the arms of the woman he loved beyond limit. And he couldn’t even find the proper words to tell her how profoundly and passionately he felt.
“Roxy.” Her name left his lips like a wistful sigh. The only girl he had ever and would ever love unguardedly with all his heart.
‘Merry Christmas Darling’ started playing over the tinny speakers and he smiled, relaxing a little at the dulcet tones of Karen Carpenter’s soothing voice. Seldom had her words felt as beautiful, as true to him as they did right that night, as if she were speaking directly to his lonely soul. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. With Karen, his own Christmas angel, singing him softly to sleep, he drifted away on a dream of twinkling lights and peppermint canes.
Merry Christmas darling
We're apart that's true
But I can dream and in my dreams
I'm Christmas-ing with you
First to come to him in his sleep was the Ghost of Christmas Past in the shape of a precious but half-forgotten memory: the Quentin Carnival fairgrounds were beautiful in December, the tents hung with crisscrossing strands of colored lights while plastic evergreens adorned each door and entrance. The Spook House dark ride had been repainted and redressed to substitute for Santa’s Playland. Johnny had slipped Mickey, the ticket taker, a five to ensure that he and Roxanne would have some time alone.
“Sorry, folks,” Johnny heard the small, gruff man tell a bunch of disappointed parents as he took Roxy’s hand and led her round the back of the building to the maintenance door,” it’s under repair. Come back in an hour, everything’ll be in working order by then.”
“Are you sure we should?” Roxy was wide-eyed, the grin on her face betraying the anxiety of her words.
“Sure,” shrugged Johnny, “this thing’s down all the time anyways. Don’t worry,” he whispered, giving her a cocky grin as he squeezed her fingers affectionately, “it’s only a spook house eleven months out of the year; ain’t no real spooks in here. Only the ghosts of Christmas.”
Their feet sank into the fluffy blanket of Styrofoam snow as they explored the North Pole, sneaking into Santa’s workshop and sitting beside the humming electric glow of the fireplace. A swanky aluminum tree shed shimmering light upon them as they snuggled and watched the fan noisily blow the same fake snow past the window again and again. Unconsciously, Roxanne found herself rubbing her bare arms and shoulders as if she were really cold even as the sweat beaded on her tanned skin and rolled lazily down her neck and gathered at the neckline of her sundress.
Johnny produced a thermos and laughed when she let out an exclamation of delight, “Well hold on now, it’s only chocolate milk and not hot chocolate, but I figured we got enough hot already.”
“We sure do,” she giggled, wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him close to her.
The vision faded in a soft, hazy flurry.
Holidays are joyful
There's always something new
But every day's a holiday
When I'm near to you
The lights on my tree
I wish you could see
I wish it every day
Next came, as it so often did in these kinds of stories, the Ghost of Christmas Present. Roxanne stood by a window, gazing out into the dark and silent night. Her fingers plucked at the neckline of her sleeveless polo-neck blouse contemplatively and she sighed restlessly. He was looking down on the scene, distant, removed, never meant to be a part of it.
“But why do your choices always keep us apart?” he heard her voice say, a soft echo reaching him as if from a long distance away.
“Some day they won’t,” he replied to the imagined voice. “But someday they won’t; someday, they’ll lead me home, straight back to you.”
“I miss you,” she replied.
He peered through the window past her and it was if he was moving through the glass, as if the wall disappeared to accommodate him. He gazed about the room and saw a handsome elderly man kneeling beside the twinkling tree, his hair white and silver, his bronze face deeply lined with age and more than a few cares. He’s always seemed so intimidating to Johnny when he had been young. “Bet your daddy doesn’t,” chuckled Johnny quietly.
She grinned secretly to herself and turned from him, crouching beside her father to help him arrange the presents. “He does now that he’s getting older and started bugging me about having grandkids,” her unembodied voice chirped cheerfully.
“This isn’t real, is it?” he asked and even then he could feel himself pulling away. He saw images of the clock beside the bed, the lamp in the shape of a cactus on the nightstand as he rolled over onto his side, the pillow soft as clouds beneath his jaw. “I’m dreaming.” She said something inaudible but implicitly soothing and he sighed blithely and as the air-con in the motel room clicked on with a rattle he felt as if he was standing in the snow, the wind ruffling his hair.
Logs on the fire
Fill me with desire
To see you and to say
That I wish you Merry Christmas
Happy New Year, too
I've just one wish
On this Christmas Eve
I wish I were with you
The last, most persuasive and provocative of all apparitions swept him away: the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come. He gazed up at the ceiling of a white room, a fan lazily making circles over his bed. Light was dawning a gentle pink, slowly reaching its rosy fingers to caress him. Roxanne’s face was suddenly looming over his, her cinnamon hair tumbling across her naked shoulders and covered breasts. “Wake up, sleepyhead. The kids’ll be up soon and we don’t want to miss Bart’s first Christmas,” she said, kissing him on the mouth.
The kids! Johnny sleepily stumbled down the modern circular metal staircase into an open white sitting room. The windows showed snow-real snow!-gently falling over a quiet private yard, the first light of da reflecting off the hoarfrost and casting an almost unearthly canescent glow. A fire blazed in the round fireplace in the middle of the room and Roxy was just plugging in the shimmering light on the aluminum tree that reminded him so much of that one they had cuddled beside all those years ago, back in those innocent days.
A few posters lined the walls at tasteful intervals, old and nostalgic, advertising Johnny’s stunt acts while a colorful banner was draped near the open kitchen announcing the reopening of the Quentin Carnival under new management. Somehow, he knew the names beneath the proclamation would read John and Roxanne Blaze. A little boy in footy pajamas ran past his legs and Roxy appeared beside him with a toddler in her arms.
“I dreamed this,” Johnny murmured. “Am I still dreaming?”
But it was all gone before his conscious mind could answer and he found himself talking to the empty motel room. He glanced at the clock; it was nearing dawn. Christmas morning. He saw the card at the bedside laying open and still unwritten. Now he knew exactly what to say. He grinned, reaching for a pen.
***
Roxanne Simpson was full of Christmas cheer. As she sat by the fireside sipping her coffee, she thought of all the good deeds she’d done that year: Tried not to think of Johnny every minute of the day; gave Stuart an extended vacation, which admittedly was accidental because he’d run off and wasn’t answering his phone; laughed at all of her dad’s jokes, or at least tried to; tried not to think of Johnny once more; gave everyone in the office a Christmas gift, even that little tart Sandy Weathers, whose real name that could not possibly be and who had bested Roxanne again by winning the coveted night anchor spot. Yeah, Roxy was full of it, all right.
Her daddy wasn’t awake yet, the house was still and quiet. Christmas was a few days past now and no word from Johnny. She waited. She waited as she knew she would unto the ending of the world for him. She slid into her slippers and walked outside, down to the mailbox where the mailman had just deposited a small bundle. She looked through the envelopes and smiled. There was no return address but she recognized the handwriting on the oversized packets; she knew it was him, as if by instinct alone.
She went back to her armchair by the hearth and sat, opening the card. Her smile turned to a wistful but joyous fall of tears as she read the words:
I wish you Merry Christmas
Happy New Year, too
I've just one wish
On this Christmas Eve
I wish I were with you
THE END
Peace on Earth, Ghani
Author: Ghani Starkiller @ mrs_peel_fanfic
Disclaimer: Ain't mine, characters and situations belong to Marvel and the filmmakers; Karen Carpenter belongs to Heaven.
Rating: PG-13-ish
Characters: Johnny/Roxanne
Warnings: Spoilers for the movie obviously, some sappy romance
Summary: Johnny spends a lonely Christmas Eve dreaming of the day he can finally come home to celebrate with Roxy.
Written for: jadeblood as a Christmas prezzie. This one's for you, darlin'!
A/N: Wasn't originally going to be Christmas themed but I happened to hear The Carpenters' "Merry Christmas Darling" on the radio while I was thinking of writing and got to thinking about how that was probably Johnny's favorite Christmas song and then the lyrics just really wrote the story for me! It also occured to me how hilarious it would be to do a version of A Christmas Carol with the Ghost Rider character...Maybe another day... ;-)
Greeting cards have all been sent
The Christmas rush is through
But I still have one wish to make
A special one for you
Johnny Blaze sat at the bar, one hand laying flat on the countertop beside his ginger ale; the other, gripping a pen, was poised over the blank interior of a greeting card. It didn’t contain any mean-spirited pun or abusive comment disguised as a joke, no mildly veiled enmity about the receiver’s age or weight; Johnny didn’t hold to that kind of thing. He’d found a simple little card with a picture of a monkey in a Santa hat at a rest stop along a long stretch of road in the Mojave and he’d snatched it up ‘cause, hell, monkeys were always funny, everyone knew that!
There was no schmaltzy sentiment inside either; Johnny firmly believed that anything worth saying to someone was worth saying right, in your own words, with your own heart. And that was just his problem: He was having trouble finding the words to say exactly what it was he wanted to say. The more he stared, the harder it became to think; his eyes ached and he saw white whenever he blinked.
He sighed, laying the pen aside. A lonely old roadhouse in the middle of the desert was hardly the ideal place to be celebrating Christmas Eve. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few of wrinkled dollar bills and some spare coins, placing them on the bar as he settled his cowboy hat on his head and tugged on the brim. “Merry Christmas,” he told the barman in his lazy drawl. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks, man.” The guy behind the counter, a burly, tattooed Amerindian, grinned sincerely, revealing several missing teeth. “And Merry Christmas, brah.” He plucked a candy cane from a jar on the bar and threw it to Johnny, who caught it in one hand, smiling down at it nostalgically; he hadn’t had one of these things in forever. He peeled back the cellophane and stuck it in the corner of his mouth like a cigar.
It was a short walk back to his motel room, kicking up a cloud of sand with the steel toes of his boots. The proprietor had begun his celebration early and was now dozing on his desk beside the glow of a miniature Christmas tree, an empty bottle of brandy in his hand. A carton of eggnog sat nearby, untouched; the old man had offered him some earlier and he had declined, and Johnny guessed he’d skipped the holiday-specific part and had gone right for the jolly when he’d found no one to make merry with.
Johnny just shook his head and strolled to his cabin door. He switched on the small TV as he closed the door behind him. ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ was playing on one channel. Johnny pulled a face and turned the channel; the last thing in the world that he needed at the moment was a message of self-sacrifice shoved down his throat. It’s one thing to go around preaching it to other people; that was just plain irritating and obnoxious. Doing’s another.
He sighed, kicking off his boots and lying back on the mattress his head, the back propped atop his folded arms, resting against the pillows. The old-fashioned string of colored bulbs lining the porch roof outside of the window cast festive shadows in the darkened room. He clicked the television off and switched the clock radio on the nightstand on, turning the dial until he found a station playing Christmas tunes. His hand brushed the blank greeting card sheepishly and he regarded it again with tired eyes.
He’d spent so many Christmases after his daddy died in voluntary solitude with only Mack and his famous beer can tree for occasional company. And then this year, the one year that there the someone special he ached to celebrate with was also the one year that momentous and grave obligations were keeping him away from the warm and inviting draw of home and the arms of the woman he loved beyond limit. And he couldn’t even find the proper words to tell her how profoundly and passionately he felt.
“Roxy.” Her name left his lips like a wistful sigh. The only girl he had ever and would ever love unguardedly with all his heart.
‘Merry Christmas Darling’ started playing over the tinny speakers and he smiled, relaxing a little at the dulcet tones of Karen Carpenter’s soothing voice. Seldom had her words felt as beautiful, as true to him as they did right that night, as if she were speaking directly to his lonely soul. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. With Karen, his own Christmas angel, singing him softly to sleep, he drifted away on a dream of twinkling lights and peppermint canes.
Merry Christmas darling
We're apart that's true
But I can dream and in my dreams
I'm Christmas-ing with you
First to come to him in his sleep was the Ghost of Christmas Past in the shape of a precious but half-forgotten memory: the Quentin Carnival fairgrounds were beautiful in December, the tents hung with crisscrossing strands of colored lights while plastic evergreens adorned each door and entrance. The Spook House dark ride had been repainted and redressed to substitute for Santa’s Playland. Johnny had slipped Mickey, the ticket taker, a five to ensure that he and Roxanne would have some time alone.
“Sorry, folks,” Johnny heard the small, gruff man tell a bunch of disappointed parents as he took Roxy’s hand and led her round the back of the building to the maintenance door,” it’s under repair. Come back in an hour, everything’ll be in working order by then.”
“Are you sure we should?” Roxy was wide-eyed, the grin on her face betraying the anxiety of her words.
“Sure,” shrugged Johnny, “this thing’s down all the time anyways. Don’t worry,” he whispered, giving her a cocky grin as he squeezed her fingers affectionately, “it’s only a spook house eleven months out of the year; ain’t no real spooks in here. Only the ghosts of Christmas.”
Their feet sank into the fluffy blanket of Styrofoam snow as they explored the North Pole, sneaking into Santa’s workshop and sitting beside the humming electric glow of the fireplace. A swanky aluminum tree shed shimmering light upon them as they snuggled and watched the fan noisily blow the same fake snow past the window again and again. Unconsciously, Roxanne found herself rubbing her bare arms and shoulders as if she were really cold even as the sweat beaded on her tanned skin and rolled lazily down her neck and gathered at the neckline of her sundress.
Johnny produced a thermos and laughed when she let out an exclamation of delight, “Well hold on now, it’s only chocolate milk and not hot chocolate, but I figured we got enough hot already.”
“We sure do,” she giggled, wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him close to her.
The vision faded in a soft, hazy flurry.
Holidays are joyful
There's always something new
But every day's a holiday
When I'm near to you
The lights on my tree
I wish you could see
I wish it every day
Next came, as it so often did in these kinds of stories, the Ghost of Christmas Present. Roxanne stood by a window, gazing out into the dark and silent night. Her fingers plucked at the neckline of her sleeveless polo-neck blouse contemplatively and she sighed restlessly. He was looking down on the scene, distant, removed, never meant to be a part of it.
“But why do your choices always keep us apart?” he heard her voice say, a soft echo reaching him as if from a long distance away.
“Some day they won’t,” he replied to the imagined voice. “But someday they won’t; someday, they’ll lead me home, straight back to you.”
“I miss you,” she replied.
He peered through the window past her and it was if he was moving through the glass, as if the wall disappeared to accommodate him. He gazed about the room and saw a handsome elderly man kneeling beside the twinkling tree, his hair white and silver, his bronze face deeply lined with age and more than a few cares. He’s always seemed so intimidating to Johnny when he had been young. “Bet your daddy doesn’t,” chuckled Johnny quietly.
She grinned secretly to herself and turned from him, crouching beside her father to help him arrange the presents. “He does now that he’s getting older and started bugging me about having grandkids,” her unembodied voice chirped cheerfully.
“This isn’t real, is it?” he asked and even then he could feel himself pulling away. He saw images of the clock beside the bed, the lamp in the shape of a cactus on the nightstand as he rolled over onto his side, the pillow soft as clouds beneath his jaw. “I’m dreaming.” She said something inaudible but implicitly soothing and he sighed blithely and as the air-con in the motel room clicked on with a rattle he felt as if he was standing in the snow, the wind ruffling his hair.
Logs on the fire
Fill me with desire
To see you and to say
That I wish you Merry Christmas
Happy New Year, too
I've just one wish
On this Christmas Eve
I wish I were with you
The last, most persuasive and provocative of all apparitions swept him away: the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come. He gazed up at the ceiling of a white room, a fan lazily making circles over his bed. Light was dawning a gentle pink, slowly reaching its rosy fingers to caress him. Roxanne’s face was suddenly looming over his, her cinnamon hair tumbling across her naked shoulders and covered breasts. “Wake up, sleepyhead. The kids’ll be up soon and we don’t want to miss Bart’s first Christmas,” she said, kissing him on the mouth.
The kids! Johnny sleepily stumbled down the modern circular metal staircase into an open white sitting room. The windows showed snow-real snow!-gently falling over a quiet private yard, the first light of da reflecting off the hoarfrost and casting an almost unearthly canescent glow. A fire blazed in the round fireplace in the middle of the room and Roxy was just plugging in the shimmering light on the aluminum tree that reminded him so much of that one they had cuddled beside all those years ago, back in those innocent days.
A few posters lined the walls at tasteful intervals, old and nostalgic, advertising Johnny’s stunt acts while a colorful banner was draped near the open kitchen announcing the reopening of the Quentin Carnival under new management. Somehow, he knew the names beneath the proclamation would read John and Roxanne Blaze. A little boy in footy pajamas ran past his legs and Roxy appeared beside him with a toddler in her arms.
“I dreamed this,” Johnny murmured. “Am I still dreaming?”
But it was all gone before his conscious mind could answer and he found himself talking to the empty motel room. He glanced at the clock; it was nearing dawn. Christmas morning. He saw the card at the bedside laying open and still unwritten. Now he knew exactly what to say. He grinned, reaching for a pen.
***
Roxanne Simpson was full of Christmas cheer. As she sat by the fireside sipping her coffee, she thought of all the good deeds she’d done that year: Tried not to think of Johnny every minute of the day; gave Stuart an extended vacation, which admittedly was accidental because he’d run off and wasn’t answering his phone; laughed at all of her dad’s jokes, or at least tried to; tried not to think of Johnny once more; gave everyone in the office a Christmas gift, even that little tart Sandy Weathers, whose real name that could not possibly be and who had bested Roxanne again by winning the coveted night anchor spot. Yeah, Roxy was full of it, all right.
Her daddy wasn’t awake yet, the house was still and quiet. Christmas was a few days past now and no word from Johnny. She waited. She waited as she knew she would unto the ending of the world for him. She slid into her slippers and walked outside, down to the mailbox where the mailman had just deposited a small bundle. She looked through the envelopes and smiled. There was no return address but she recognized the handwriting on the oversized packets; she knew it was him, as if by instinct alone.
She went back to her armchair by the hearth and sat, opening the card. Her smile turned to a wistful but joyous fall of tears as she read the words:
I wish you Merry Christmas
Happy New Year, too
I've just one wish
On this Christmas Eve
I wish I were with you
THE END
Peace on Earth, Ghani