Christmas Fic
Coming up with some random bits of fic, in the hopes of enticing the muse back and putting her to work. First time writing Faith, and one of the first pieces of Buffy fanfic without Spike.
"Christmas on C Block"
Rated R (for a few bad words)
Slight Angel/Faith
Set in AtS Season Three
There are no cardboard cutouts of the man in red, nor Christmas jingles piped over the loudspeaker.
For these, Faith is extremely grateful.
A few of the other girls on C Block have been looking forward to the day - visitors would be allowed. Pilar was looking forward to seeing her sisters, Shannon was hoping against hope that her dad would make it (snowball's chance in hell), and word had quietly been circulating that Sheryn's dealer would come through.
Faith decided that holidays in general were an exercise in disappointment and pain - most of these girls' hopes would get up, only to be let down, by the very people they'd let down. The only thing you could look forward to were some slabs of donated hams, served ice cold and chewy, and an overly moist lump that passed for pumpkin pie. It wasn't that anyone looked forward to these culinary delights, but they were dependable, in their own way.
Christmases in Boston were best forgotten, or at least filed away in a drawer that she could pull out and club the prison psychologist with when the need arose.
The only Christmas Faith cares to remember was spent sipping cocoa on the couch with Joyce Summers, waiting for Buffy to finish her latest dance of angst with Angel, seeing the freak-miracle snowstorm come down for the miracle couple themselves. The last time she'd seen Joyce was to play psycho hostage-taker. If Buffy knew what difference a mother made...but then again she likely did, with Angel's report that the eldest Summers woman had died. There was no one now who would look forward to spending the holiday with her like that.
Oh, grow the fuck up! she thought in response to that last reminiscence.
The miracle man himself had yet to make an appearance this month - one more damn disappointment to throw on the pile. Faith leaned back in her bunk on Christmas morning, listening to the numbers of the others get called. Absent-mindedly, she pulled her prized stick of lip balm out and began applying a thick coat, before remembering that Angel had been the one to send her the chapstick. The way things went in her life, she'd do better to save it.
"Lehane!" The bark echoed down the hall, oddly amplified in her cell.
"Yo!" she yelled back.
"Yo is not a word, Lehane. What do you say?" The speaker stepped forward - Officer Lambert (sir!) - and let her keys dangle from the tips of her fingers, tauntingly.
"Present, sir," Faith drawled lazily from her lounging position. A little feigned respect saved her more than a few beatings at the end of the day - but then she'd learned that at her mother's knee. No need for a guard to teach her that invaluable lesson.
"Get your ass up. Got a visitor."
Officer Billings stepped into view, with all the appropriate accessory gear. Faith allowed herself to be chained (and it was allowing, she noted to herself. Any less self-restraint and she'd have had the chains snapped around the necks of both these overgrown bullies. Reflexively, she was glad that her hair was down and that she had some color on her lips.
So Angel was going to mark the occasion after all. He'd better damn well have an excuse for missing the last few visiting days. It was worse to be stood up in jail than it was to be stood up on a date - that was it, that was the line she'd use.
The doors opened into the familiar old plastic and steel visiting room, but Faith didn't waste time getting her first glance of the tardy vampire. Let him stare and know her strength. Like a queen, she let the guard unbind her shackles, as if she were a princess being attended to by a bevy of ladies-in-waiting.
With the guiding pressure of the guard's hand, Faith marched over to the visiting booth, eyes finding Angel's own and holding them in a continual stare. Not a hint of recalcitrance - excitement? The vamp was over two hundred frickin' years old - he could not be that excited about the holiday.
Faith seized the phone, bringing it up to her ear, first remark about to fly off her lips.
"You know, sta-" the perfect remark was cut off in midsentence when Faith realized there was a tiny arm sticking out of Angel's chest. There was something there, small and wrapped in a white blanket, and what was she thinking, there was only one thing in the world that men and women cradled to their chests like that.
"Who's that?" she managed to spit out.
Angel's grin could sell toothpaste. "Faith, I'd like you to meet my son. This is Connor." Angel held the phone precariously between ear and shoulder, freeing both his hands to hold up the red-faced little human, who began to whimper once he was shifted, but relaxed with his return to Angel's arms.
Human?
"You adopted...?" she managed to get out, because she'd just assumed that vamp spew was about as potent as a glass of water.
"No, mine and Darla's," Angel beamed, the picture of a happy father. "Long story. He was just born about two weeks ago yesterday, which is why I haven't been here lately." There's no sorry attached, and Faith is aware that there's no need for one. He pauses to adjust Connor in his arms, and the baby turns and looks right at Faith. "The gang thinks he's going to have brown eyes, but I'm kind of hoping they're gonna stay blue."
When it hits Faith, it comes with the force of a baton. The look in Angel's eyes is one of total besotted love - this crying child in his arms is the focus and center of his universe. And he brought that center here, to meet her, to show him off despite the rude, unsafe surroundings, and to be with her on Christmas.
"Merry Christmas, Angel the II," she manages, and her smile extends the sentiment to Connor's father.
Perhaps this is what Christmas really feels like.
"Christmas on C Block"
Rated R (for a few bad words)
Slight Angel/Faith
Set in AtS Season Three
There are no cardboard cutouts of the man in red, nor Christmas jingles piped over the loudspeaker.
For these, Faith is extremely grateful.
A few of the other girls on C Block have been looking forward to the day - visitors would be allowed. Pilar was looking forward to seeing her sisters, Shannon was hoping against hope that her dad would make it (snowball's chance in hell), and word had quietly been circulating that Sheryn's dealer would come through.
Faith decided that holidays in general were an exercise in disappointment and pain - most of these girls' hopes would get up, only to be let down, by the very people they'd let down. The only thing you could look forward to were some slabs of donated hams, served ice cold and chewy, and an overly moist lump that passed for pumpkin pie. It wasn't that anyone looked forward to these culinary delights, but they were dependable, in their own way.
Christmases in Boston were best forgotten, or at least filed away in a drawer that she could pull out and club the prison psychologist with when the need arose.
The only Christmas Faith cares to remember was spent sipping cocoa on the couch with Joyce Summers, waiting for Buffy to finish her latest dance of angst with Angel, seeing the freak-miracle snowstorm come down for the miracle couple themselves. The last time she'd seen Joyce was to play psycho hostage-taker. If Buffy knew what difference a mother made...but then again she likely did, with Angel's report that the eldest Summers woman had died. There was no one now who would look forward to spending the holiday with her like that.
Oh, grow the fuck up! she thought in response to that last reminiscence.
The miracle man himself had yet to make an appearance this month - one more damn disappointment to throw on the pile. Faith leaned back in her bunk on Christmas morning, listening to the numbers of the others get called. Absent-mindedly, she pulled her prized stick of lip balm out and began applying a thick coat, before remembering that Angel had been the one to send her the chapstick. The way things went in her life, she'd do better to save it.
"Lehane!" The bark echoed down the hall, oddly amplified in her cell.
"Yo!" she yelled back.
"Yo is not a word, Lehane. What do you say?" The speaker stepped forward - Officer Lambert (sir!) - and let her keys dangle from the tips of her fingers, tauntingly.
"Present, sir," Faith drawled lazily from her lounging position. A little feigned respect saved her more than a few beatings at the end of the day - but then she'd learned that at her mother's knee. No need for a guard to teach her that invaluable lesson.
"Get your ass up. Got a visitor."
Officer Billings stepped into view, with all the appropriate accessory gear. Faith allowed herself to be chained (and it was allowing, she noted to herself. Any less self-restraint and she'd have had the chains snapped around the necks of both these overgrown bullies. Reflexively, she was glad that her hair was down and that she had some color on her lips.
So Angel was going to mark the occasion after all. He'd better damn well have an excuse for missing the last few visiting days. It was worse to be stood up in jail than it was to be stood up on a date - that was it, that was the line she'd use.
The doors opened into the familiar old plastic and steel visiting room, but Faith didn't waste time getting her first glance of the tardy vampire. Let him stare and know her strength. Like a queen, she let the guard unbind her shackles, as if she were a princess being attended to by a bevy of ladies-in-waiting.
With the guiding pressure of the guard's hand, Faith marched over to the visiting booth, eyes finding Angel's own and holding them in a continual stare. Not a hint of recalcitrance - excitement? The vamp was over two hundred frickin' years old - he could not be that excited about the holiday.
Faith seized the phone, bringing it up to her ear, first remark about to fly off her lips.
"You know, sta-" the perfect remark was cut off in midsentence when Faith realized there was a tiny arm sticking out of Angel's chest. There was something there, small and wrapped in a white blanket, and what was she thinking, there was only one thing in the world that men and women cradled to their chests like that.
"Who's that?" she managed to spit out.
Angel's grin could sell toothpaste. "Faith, I'd like you to meet my son. This is Connor." Angel held the phone precariously between ear and shoulder, freeing both his hands to hold up the red-faced little human, who began to whimper once he was shifted, but relaxed with his return to Angel's arms.
Human?
"You adopted...?" she managed to get out, because she'd just assumed that vamp spew was about as potent as a glass of water.
"No, mine and Darla's," Angel beamed, the picture of a happy father. "Long story. He was just born about two weeks ago yesterday, which is why I haven't been here lately." There's no sorry attached, and Faith is aware that there's no need for one. He pauses to adjust Connor in his arms, and the baby turns and looks right at Faith. "The gang thinks he's going to have brown eyes, but I'm kind of hoping they're gonna stay blue."
When it hits Faith, it comes with the force of a baton. The look in Angel's eyes is one of total besotted love - this crying child in his arms is the focus and center of his universe. And he brought that center here, to meet her, to show him off despite the rude, unsafe surroundings, and to be with her on Christmas.
"Merry Christmas, Angel the II," she manages, and her smile extends the sentiment to Connor's father.
Perhaps this is what Christmas really feels like.