Amends Fic: Beft Laid Planf
Title: Beft Laid Planf
Author: damnskippytoo
Genre: Humor, a little angst tossed in
Rating: PG
Characters: Cordelia with a guest appearance by her father
Spoilers: Set during BtVS "Amends"
Summary: Cordelia: Well, I'll be in Aspen. Skiing. With actual snow. --- Amends
A/N: Unbeta'd. All mistakes and sucky writing completely my fault.
It was one thing to have to see them at school, but no way was Cordelia Chase wasting a moment of a holiday that involved massive amounts of presents and excellent clothes anywhere near those cheaters and losers.
Willow and Buffy could have Xander. Hell, he deserved to be stuck with that whiny ginger witch and her attached-at-the-hip peroxide-blonde powerhouse freak. If there was any justice in the world, by the time she returned from Aspen, the three of them will be gone having been sucked into some bizarro dimension of marshmallow swamps with demon insects that simultaneously lick and sting them to death very slowly.
Yes, she sighed, that would be the perfect Christmas gift.
Cordelia frowned. Okay, maybe she was being a bit catty. But perhaps that was because the leopard print Dolce and Gabbana overnight bag that her dad had surprised her with before they left and that she was currently pulling behind her put her in that rawr cat head space.
Stifling back a giggle, she inserted the card key into the hotel door lock and stepped inside her Aspen winter wonderland retreat.
The stone fireplace in the sitting room was pre-lit and the crackling pine scent threaded through her body massaging the tension from her muscles. On a small table in the corner sat an overly ornate Christmas tree with an old world-style stuffed Santa bearing a bag overflowing with Belgian chocolate truffles just for her.
"Yum and thank you, Santa. I'll be checking you out after I unpack."
~*~*~*~*~
An hour later - her designer ski ensembles carefully placed in drawers or on padded hangers as the clothes warranted and twenty minutes of glorious curling and stretching on the satin duvet completed - Cordelia sat cross-legged in front of the fireplace.
A more perfect evening in the Rockies could not be imagined. Outside her balcony windows, the snow fell, the flakes as fuzzy and round as cotton balls. Inside, the fire leapt and sang crisply warming the room not only with its heat but with a soft amber glow. She knew the lighting and atmosphere was the epitome of romance and only wished she had someone special to share it with.
Unfortunately, thinking in those terms only served up an image of Xander and his backstabbing ways which immediately threatened to ruin her good mood.
There was only one thing for it. She eyed the tree with chocolates underneath once again.
Picking one from the bag, she quickly unwrapped the cellophane. She halted, however, before taking a bite and said a prayer…of sorts.
"Dear Santa, thank you for your gifts both past, present and future. And may tomorrow, Christmas - the most holy of holy days - bring joy and tons more snow to this humble worshipper." The candy almost to her mouth, she thought of something else. "Oh! And if you really want to give me something, you can just leave a lump of coal in Sunnydale. Those losers don't appreciate the finer things in life anyway."
Smiling, she popped the truffle into her mouth and mmmmm'd as the dark richness melted on her tongue and a creamy silk wave, like a warm avalanche, slid down her throat.
She daintily wiped the corners of her mouth with a fingertip. "You really know your chocolate, Santa. I guess that's pretty evident, though, considering the size of your stomach there, huh," she said, poking at the stuffed doll's middle.
Another truffle was about to meet its fate when a knock interrupted her plans.
"Cordelia, honey, we're going down for dinner," her father's voice called, clear but slightly muffled through the heavy wood door.
"Okay, dad. I'll be right there."
Standing quickly, she grabbed the pashmina shawl from the settee and threw it over her shoulders.
As she closed the door behind her, a gust of wind from her wake swept around the room. The fire soared from the influx of oxygen as the decorations on the tree shook and jingled. From beside the stuffed Santa, a small, folded card with elegant script slid off the table's edge and fluttered to the carpet below.
*~*~*~*~*~
Christmas morning in Aspen. Cordelia was too excited to begin her most excellent ski vacation and so was up earlier than even she thought possible.
No quick shower, though, when a fine Jacuzzi bath was available. She hummed as the smell of roses and lavender surrounded her and bubbles tickled her spine. Thirty minutes of soaking, her skin plumped and slick with bath oil, she reluctantly left the tub and let out a long ooohhhhh when the heated towel surrounded her wet, cool skin. And she hissed an 'oh, yeah' when she wrapped the plush cotton robe trimmed with silk over her body and her feet slid into the matching slippers provided by the hotel for their most prestigious guests.
Cordelia was in luxury heaven and she totally deserved it. Her life BR (before rebar) was no picnic. Not with the Scooby delinquents invading her every waking moment and the embarrassment that dating Xander had caused her. But AR (after rebar) had been, if possible, even more wrong.
What could she have possibly done to deserve the disaster that was her life up until now? It wasn't like she was a serial killer or had worn white after Labor Day or anything. She had standards which few could live up to, but that wasn’t a crime as far as she knew.
She'd been born beautiful and rich - both of which were out of her control - and people were just envious and jealous. How she managed to put up with it all was a testament to her strong will and keen intelligence.
But did people admire her for that? Of course not. To them, she was stuck up and snooty. Well screw them. From now on, Cordelia Chase was reclaiming her crown as queen of the jungle. A lioness who would be generous when it was deserved but ruthless when riled.
Sunnydale would be her bitch yet again. Once she was refreshed and rejuvenated by this vacation, she would take back her home territory and those other people (what were their names again?) wouldn't even be a blip on her stylish radar.
The thought itself put a bounce in her slippered step as Cordelia turban wrapped her wet hair with a towel and entered her sitting room. The fire had died during the night but she wasn't feeling any chill, once more thanking her hotel hosts for the warm coverings.
She spied the luscious chocolates and thought what better way to begin her new life than with a treat fit for a queen.
As she bent to pick one up, her foot met with something not carpet like. She lifted her slipper and saw she had stepped on what looked like an invitation. Undeterred, she grabbed one of the chocolates and then picked up the card.
Plopping on the settee, the crinkling of the cellophane unwrapping accompanied her reading. The writing appeared to be some kind of old school calligraphy resembling English, but it was difficult to read.
"Hmmm. Legend hath it, that the firft Santa Clauf…"
She finished reading what she could, but the words were puzzling.
"What the…? What is a curfed trifle?" she mumbled with a mouth full of goo. But her jaw dropped as a vague recollection of some impossible to read Middle Ages text (Chaucer? Beowulf?) that had bored her to tears in literature class skittered across her mind. Didn't they use something curvy that looked like an "f" in place of an "s", she wondered.
When the letter substitution in her brain decrypted the script in her hand, Cordelia gasped and dropped the card in her lap. Her eyes scanned the room for something - anything that might jump out at her. But everything appeared as it had last night. No woodsy demon or flying ski pole in sight.
She let out a tensely held breath and began to relax when she suddenly realized her hand was hot. She looked down and saw it was bathed in a stream of light peeking through the gap between the heavy curtain panels covering her balcony window.
"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no!"
Cordelia leapt from her seat, the accursed card hovering in mid air on the air current created by her mad dash to fling open the curtains.
She blinked at the sudden brightness and then her shoulders slumped as she was finally able to focus through the sun's glare.
Green. Nothing but green, green, and more green as far as she could see. Oh, look, there's some brown.
"Cordy! Cordy, honey, you up?" Her father's loud knocking made her flinch.
"Yeah, dad," she called back and mumbled "unfortunately" under her breath as she went to the door.
She opened it to her father's face which practically glowed with excitement.
"Artie called from Sunnydale. He said it's snowing there. Do you believe it?"
"Huh. Whaddya know? Must be some kind of miracle."
"That's what your mother said. Hurry up and pack. We have to get home to see this. Besides, in case you didn't notice yet, there won't be any skiing here for awhile."
He ran back to his room like a child who couldn't wait to open his first Christmas present. Cordelia pushed the door shut one-fingered and stared, numbly, at the back of it for awhile.
When she eventually got the energy to move, she turned and saw that damn card in the middle of the floor. Pulling all the disappointment and anger she could from her gut, she kicked at it and watched it merely float a few feet and softly land on the fireplace hearth.
Her apathetic gaze moved from the paper to the fireplace iron and what she saw made her laugh out loud.
"Figures," she said.
As she shuffled past to repack her now useless designer fashions in the leopard overnight bag that silently mocked her, the sun glinting off the large lump of coal in the fireplace put a sparkle in the stuffed Santa's glass eyes.
---end--
A/N2: Any similarities between this and my buddy samsom's wonderful "Amends" fic is purely coincidental. I found I couldn't let Cordy have a fun ski trip without screwing her over. I guess it's just the f**kwad Joss in me. :D
Author: damnskippytoo
Genre: Humor, a little angst tossed in
Rating: PG
Characters: Cordelia with a guest appearance by her father
Spoilers: Set during BtVS "Amends"
Summary: Cordelia: Well, I'll be in Aspen. Skiing. With actual snow. --- Amends
A/N: Unbeta'd. All mistakes and sucky writing completely my fault.
It was one thing to have to see them at school, but no way was Cordelia Chase wasting a moment of a holiday that involved massive amounts of presents and excellent clothes anywhere near those cheaters and losers.
Willow and Buffy could have Xander. Hell, he deserved to be stuck with that whiny ginger witch and her attached-at-the-hip peroxide-blonde powerhouse freak. If there was any justice in the world, by the time she returned from Aspen, the three of them will be gone having been sucked into some bizarro dimension of marshmallow swamps with demon insects that simultaneously lick and sting them to death very slowly.
Yes, she sighed, that would be the perfect Christmas gift.
Cordelia frowned. Okay, maybe she was being a bit catty. But perhaps that was because the leopard print Dolce and Gabbana overnight bag that her dad had surprised her with before they left and that she was currently pulling behind her put her in that rawr cat head space.
Stifling back a giggle, she inserted the card key into the hotel door lock and stepped inside her Aspen winter wonderland retreat.
The stone fireplace in the sitting room was pre-lit and the crackling pine scent threaded through her body massaging the tension from her muscles. On a small table in the corner sat an overly ornate Christmas tree with an old world-style stuffed Santa bearing a bag overflowing with Belgian chocolate truffles just for her.
"Yum and thank you, Santa. I'll be checking you out after I unpack."
~*~*~*~*~
An hour later - her designer ski ensembles carefully placed in drawers or on padded hangers as the clothes warranted and twenty minutes of glorious curling and stretching on the satin duvet completed - Cordelia sat cross-legged in front of the fireplace.
A more perfect evening in the Rockies could not be imagined. Outside her balcony windows, the snow fell, the flakes as fuzzy and round as cotton balls. Inside, the fire leapt and sang crisply warming the room not only with its heat but with a soft amber glow. She knew the lighting and atmosphere was the epitome of romance and only wished she had someone special to share it with.
Unfortunately, thinking in those terms only served up an image of Xander and his backstabbing ways which immediately threatened to ruin her good mood.
There was only one thing for it. She eyed the tree with chocolates underneath once again.
Picking one from the bag, she quickly unwrapped the cellophane. She halted, however, before taking a bite and said a prayer…of sorts.
"Dear Santa, thank you for your gifts both past, present and future. And may tomorrow, Christmas - the most holy of holy days - bring joy and tons more snow to this humble worshipper." The candy almost to her mouth, she thought of something else. "Oh! And if you really want to give me something, you can just leave a lump of coal in Sunnydale. Those losers don't appreciate the finer things in life anyway."
Smiling, she popped the truffle into her mouth and mmmmm'd as the dark richness melted on her tongue and a creamy silk wave, like a warm avalanche, slid down her throat.
She daintily wiped the corners of her mouth with a fingertip. "You really know your chocolate, Santa. I guess that's pretty evident, though, considering the size of your stomach there, huh," she said, poking at the stuffed doll's middle.
Another truffle was about to meet its fate when a knock interrupted her plans.
"Cordelia, honey, we're going down for dinner," her father's voice called, clear but slightly muffled through the heavy wood door.
"Okay, dad. I'll be right there."
Standing quickly, she grabbed the pashmina shawl from the settee and threw it over her shoulders.
As she closed the door behind her, a gust of wind from her wake swept around the room. The fire soared from the influx of oxygen as the decorations on the tree shook and jingled. From beside the stuffed Santa, a small, folded card with elegant script slid off the table's edge and fluttered to the carpet below.
*~*~*~*~*~
Christmas morning in Aspen. Cordelia was too excited to begin her most excellent ski vacation and so was up earlier than even she thought possible.
No quick shower, though, when a fine Jacuzzi bath was available. She hummed as the smell of roses and lavender surrounded her and bubbles tickled her spine. Thirty minutes of soaking, her skin plumped and slick with bath oil, she reluctantly left the tub and let out a long ooohhhhh when the heated towel surrounded her wet, cool skin. And she hissed an 'oh, yeah' when she wrapped the plush cotton robe trimmed with silk over her body and her feet slid into the matching slippers provided by the hotel for their most prestigious guests.
Cordelia was in luxury heaven and she totally deserved it. Her life BR (before rebar) was no picnic. Not with the Scooby delinquents invading her every waking moment and the embarrassment that dating Xander had caused her. But AR (after rebar) had been, if possible, even more wrong.
What could she have possibly done to deserve the disaster that was her life up until now? It wasn't like she was a serial killer or had worn white after Labor Day or anything. She had standards which few could live up to, but that wasn’t a crime as far as she knew.
She'd been born beautiful and rich - both of which were out of her control - and people were just envious and jealous. How she managed to put up with it all was a testament to her strong will and keen intelligence.
But did people admire her for that? Of course not. To them, she was stuck up and snooty. Well screw them. From now on, Cordelia Chase was reclaiming her crown as queen of the jungle. A lioness who would be generous when it was deserved but ruthless when riled.
Sunnydale would be her bitch yet again. Once she was refreshed and rejuvenated by this vacation, she would take back her home territory and those other people (what were their names again?) wouldn't even be a blip on her stylish radar.
The thought itself put a bounce in her slippered step as Cordelia turban wrapped her wet hair with a towel and entered her sitting room. The fire had died during the night but she wasn't feeling any chill, once more thanking her hotel hosts for the warm coverings.
She spied the luscious chocolates and thought what better way to begin her new life than with a treat fit for a queen.
As she bent to pick one up, her foot met with something not carpet like. She lifted her slipper and saw she had stepped on what looked like an invitation. Undeterred, she grabbed one of the chocolates and then picked up the card.
Plopping on the settee, the crinkling of the cellophane unwrapping accompanied her reading. The writing appeared to be some kind of old school calligraphy resembling English, but it was difficult to read.
"Hmmm. Legend hath it, that the firft Santa Clauf…"
She finished reading what she could, but the words were puzzling.
"What the…? What is a curfed trifle?" she mumbled with a mouth full of goo. But her jaw dropped as a vague recollection of some impossible to read Middle Ages text (Chaucer? Beowulf?) that had bored her to tears in literature class skittered across her mind. Didn't they use something curvy that looked like an "f" in place of an "s", she wondered.
When the letter substitution in her brain decrypted the script in her hand, Cordelia gasped and dropped the card in her lap. Her eyes scanned the room for something - anything that might jump out at her. But everything appeared as it had last night. No woodsy demon or flying ski pole in sight.
She let out a tensely held breath and began to relax when she suddenly realized her hand was hot. She looked down and saw it was bathed in a stream of light peeking through the gap between the heavy curtain panels covering her balcony window.
"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no!"
Cordelia leapt from her seat, the accursed card hovering in mid air on the air current created by her mad dash to fling open the curtains.
She blinked at the sudden brightness and then her shoulders slumped as she was finally able to focus through the sun's glare.
Green. Nothing but green, green, and more green as far as she could see. Oh, look, there's some brown.
"Cordy! Cordy, honey, you up?" Her father's loud knocking made her flinch.
"Yeah, dad," she called back and mumbled "unfortunately" under her breath as she went to the door.
She opened it to her father's face which practically glowed with excitement.
"Artie called from Sunnydale. He said it's snowing there. Do you believe it?"
"Huh. Whaddya know? Must be some kind of miracle."
"That's what your mother said. Hurry up and pack. We have to get home to see this. Besides, in case you didn't notice yet, there won't be any skiing here for awhile."
He ran back to his room like a child who couldn't wait to open his first Christmas present. Cordelia pushed the door shut one-fingered and stared, numbly, at the back of it for awhile.
When she eventually got the energy to move, she turned and saw that damn card in the middle of the floor. Pulling all the disappointment and anger she could from her gut, she kicked at it and watched it merely float a few feet and softly land on the fireplace hearth.
Her apathetic gaze moved from the paper to the fireplace iron and what she saw made her laugh out loud.
"Figures," she said.
As she shuffled past to repack her now useless designer fashions in the leopard overnight bag that silently mocked her, the sun glinting off the large lump of coal in the fireplace put a sparkle in the stuffed Santa's glass eyes.
---end--
A/N2: Any similarities between this and my buddy samsom's wonderful "Amends" fic is purely coincidental. I found I couldn't let Cordy have a fun ski trip without screwing her over. I guess it's just the f**kwad Joss in me. :D