Fic: Black and White and Red All Over (Faith, PG13)
genfic_minis lives! Kinda. Very low turnout for this round, but I am one of it, because it's a Faith round. And I love mini comms, too.
Author Brutti ma buoni
Title Black and White and Red All Over
Rating PG13, bloody imagery and cursing
Word count 650
Prompt for aaronlisa who wanted b&w tv, cheap motel room and Faith somewhere on her way to Sunnydale.
Character Just Faith
The TV is a piece of shit. Which shouldn’t surprise Faith. $19.99 for a room is not the money you pay for a quality experience, and the slovenly clerk out front didn’t exactly advertise high class accommodation. But even with all that, and after six previous nights in cheapass motels, a black and white TV is kind of a shock. It might actually be the original from when this place opened. The décor sure hasn't changed. She has a brief moment of imagining this room as it was then, clean and hopeful with a shiny new TV. Then gets a flash of all the crud that happened to make this room the sticky faded shithole it now is. With the stains that speak of sickness, poverty and despair.
Which is a lot to get from a crappy TV. Downer. Faith turns it on anyway.
She watches news programming for maybe a minute, marveling at how old fashioned it looks without colour. All the shadows are screwy, the image is flat, and there’s a cheap, unconvincing horror movie vibe about it which makes the weather report seem unlikely to be good news.
Speaking of… she flips the channel, looking for something a little more fighty and distracting. And there’s Dracula, with a girl in a bedroom and a guy breaking down the door too late, trying to save her. The picture was obviously shot in black and white; it looks way better than the full-colour news did, all sharp shadows and clear highlights. Dracula is suave, with slick hair and a sweet suit. The guy looks heroic and muscular, the girl looks…
The girl looks fucking terrified.
Faith stares. It looks real. It’s the only thing in the movie that does look real, but that fear bites hard. Teeth in her gut, gnawing away her recaptured bravery, just for a minute.
This movie isn't reality. Faith knows that. This isn’t how a vampire attack goes. Definitely not an attack by a master vampire, centuries old, like Drac. Faith knows how that goes. For one thing, it ain’t just black and white. There’s red. All over. Red fabric, because Kakistos likes to stick to the classic vampire stylings and his minions do what daddy says. Red on his mouth and hands from the blood. Red blood all over her Watcher too. Her brave, savvy Watcher, who looks fucking terrified as she watches her arteries betray her and empty her lifeblood, pumping onto the garage floor.
Faith will never forget that look. It’s vivid, always present. It's why she can't look away from the authentic fear in the film: the actress catching that near-death terror exactly.
Faith wonders what the starlet lived through to help her fake that so perfectly. Maybe she was one of the unlucky ones that discovered there really were vamps out there. Wouldn’t that be a shitty job? Acting the part of the doomed victim, when you’ve been one yourself and survived. Faith hopes she was just a damn fine actress, stuck in a Z-grade film career and still giving it her all.
She considers, briefly, whether her own preferred Plan A - to take her strength and indestructibility to Hollywood and score some stunt work - might still work out. Watcher had scoffed, called her naïve, but Watcher was dead and history. Faith didn’t bother to name her anymore, even in her own memory. What good did remembering do? Move onward instead. Hollywood would be wild. Way cooler than hooking up with the other Slayer and playing vampire tag for the rest of her short natural life.
But no. The film moves on with another bloodcurdling shriek from the girl as she gets bit. It reminds Faith that Plan A is junk now. Kakistos would find her in Hollywood, just like anywhere else. She needs cover from other people who can fight, not make-up girls and lighting guys. They’d just stand and scream, like this girl. And Faith would be black hair, white skin and red blood all over the studio floor.
***
Author Brutti ma buoni
Title Black and White and Red All Over
Rating PG13, bloody imagery and cursing
Word count 650
Prompt for aaronlisa who wanted b&w tv, cheap motel room and Faith somewhere on her way to Sunnydale.
Character Just Faith
The TV is a piece of shit. Which shouldn’t surprise Faith. $19.99 for a room is not the money you pay for a quality experience, and the slovenly clerk out front didn’t exactly advertise high class accommodation. But even with all that, and after six previous nights in cheapass motels, a black and white TV is kind of a shock. It might actually be the original from when this place opened. The décor sure hasn't changed. She has a brief moment of imagining this room as it was then, clean and hopeful with a shiny new TV. Then gets a flash of all the crud that happened to make this room the sticky faded shithole it now is. With the stains that speak of sickness, poverty and despair.
Which is a lot to get from a crappy TV. Downer. Faith turns it on anyway.
She watches news programming for maybe a minute, marveling at how old fashioned it looks without colour. All the shadows are screwy, the image is flat, and there’s a cheap, unconvincing horror movie vibe about it which makes the weather report seem unlikely to be good news.
Speaking of… she flips the channel, looking for something a little more fighty and distracting. And there’s Dracula, with a girl in a bedroom and a guy breaking down the door too late, trying to save her. The picture was obviously shot in black and white; it looks way better than the full-colour news did, all sharp shadows and clear highlights. Dracula is suave, with slick hair and a sweet suit. The guy looks heroic and muscular, the girl looks…
The girl looks fucking terrified.
Faith stares. It looks real. It’s the only thing in the movie that does look real, but that fear bites hard. Teeth in her gut, gnawing away her recaptured bravery, just for a minute.
This movie isn't reality. Faith knows that. This isn’t how a vampire attack goes. Definitely not an attack by a master vampire, centuries old, like Drac. Faith knows how that goes. For one thing, it ain’t just black and white. There’s red. All over. Red fabric, because Kakistos likes to stick to the classic vampire stylings and his minions do what daddy says. Red on his mouth and hands from the blood. Red blood all over her Watcher too. Her brave, savvy Watcher, who looks fucking terrified as she watches her arteries betray her and empty her lifeblood, pumping onto the garage floor.
Faith will never forget that look. It’s vivid, always present. It's why she can't look away from the authentic fear in the film: the actress catching that near-death terror exactly.
Faith wonders what the starlet lived through to help her fake that so perfectly. Maybe she was one of the unlucky ones that discovered there really were vamps out there. Wouldn’t that be a shitty job? Acting the part of the doomed victim, when you’ve been one yourself and survived. Faith hopes she was just a damn fine actress, stuck in a Z-grade film career and still giving it her all.
She considers, briefly, whether her own preferred Plan A - to take her strength and indestructibility to Hollywood and score some stunt work - might still work out. Watcher had scoffed, called her naïve, but Watcher was dead and history. Faith didn’t bother to name her anymore, even in her own memory. What good did remembering do? Move onward instead. Hollywood would be wild. Way cooler than hooking up with the other Slayer and playing vampire tag for the rest of her short natural life.
But no. The film moves on with another bloodcurdling shriek from the girl as she gets bit. It reminds Faith that Plan A is junk now. Kakistos would find her in Hollywood, just like anywhere else. She needs cover from other people who can fight, not make-up girls and lighting guys. They’d just stand and scream, like this girl. And Faith would be black hair, white skin and red blood all over the studio floor.
***