Drabble and ficlet

[beer_good_foamy]

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Onto the more serious stuff, here's a Faith backstory ficlet written for general_buffy's "I Ate A Decorator Once" challenge, and also for the lovely nikitangel who wanted fill-in-the-gap Faith fic for her birthday (so happy one of those!):

Title: The Kid
Author: Beer Good (beer_good_foamy)
Timeline: Pre-series
Rating: PG13
Length: 911
Summary: Some things are just never meant to be. Heck, some things are practically over before they begin. But they still leave traces.
Character: Faith, OC
Disclaimer: Joss rows the boat ashore, hallelujah! Joss owns the characters, hallelu-u-u-jah!

Of course, it's not nearly the worst relationship mistake Jack's ever made. Not like he lost the love of his life or anything; some things just aren't meant to be. Still, even years later, he thinks about the kid sometimes.

The Lehane woman (as he thinks of her afterwards, after her face starts blending into a slightly hazy composite of Ex-Girlfriends) is fun enough to be around at first. Sure, she has a daughter and he's never really been the type to date single moms, but it turns out the little rugrat is a hoot and a half. This little 8-year-old, cute as a bug, who seems to worship the ground he walks on. Pretty cool. He takes her to the park or the mall on Saturdays when her mom likes to sleep in, he teaches her the foosball game someone left in his apartment (she has great reflexes and actually beats him more often than not), reads her stories, makes her laugh – which makes him laugh. When there isn't a party on, the three of them spend evenings in front of the TV just like regular people and for a while he even thinks that he could get used to this.

But then, of course, things start going South. OK, he probably has no right to complain, Lord knows he could probably stand to drink a lot less himself, but damnit, the woman's drunk all the time. And inevitably, there's fights. At first they lead to apologies and great make-up sex, and then they lead to angry sex, and finally they just lead to more fights. Soon it's the only thing they share, and that's not really something you base a relationship on.

So when he gets a job offer in Chicago he decides to cut his losses and tells her it's over. The kid hides out in her room again as they yell at each other, but there's not even any real spark in their fighting. Whatever it was is already dead, ships passing in the night and so forth. He empties out his overnight drawer, goes back to his second-hand apartment to start packing for the move, and that should be it, really. Certainly not the first failed relationship for either of them.

Only the next day, the kid shows up at his door, sporting a black eye, near-hysterical. He brings her inside, gets her a glass of milk and tries to calm her down. Apparently, she and her mom had a fight about him leaving, and now she's going on about how her mom is much nicer when he's around, that she wants to live with him instead, and that she hates her mom and never ever wants to go home again.

And it's not like he doesn't feel sorry for her. Hell, she's a good kid; nobody gets to pick their parents, and more than a few of the fights he had with her mom was about her disciplinary tactics. But let's face it, what's he gonna do? Demand custody of a girl he's known for less than six months? Taking her with him would be kidnapping, and staying simply isn't an option. His lease is up and besides, this might be a bona fide career opportunity. A chance to get out of Boston and straighten out his life.

So they have The Talk. You know, the one where he explains to her about how he isn't her daddy (hell, she knows THAT), how it's not up to him to decide, how this is not her fault, things just didn't work out between him and her mom, yada yada yada. That running away doesn't solve anything and that her mother loves her, really, she's just under a lot of pressure and needs her daughter to stick around and help her get through this. And he tells her she's gonna be

"Five by five? What's that mean?"

"It's something we used to say when I was in the army. It means you're tough. Means you know that whatever happens, you'll always land on your feet, because you're a real badass and you don't take crap from anyone. OK? Think you can look out for yourself for me, Faithy?"

He ruffles her hair and she knows the game's up, so she smiles a smile that never reaches her eyes and nods. It's not her first break-up either.

"Attagirl."

He sees her to the door and when she moves to hug him, he backs off and instead offers a manly handshake. Because she's crying and if he's perfectly honest with himself, he's not sure he won't join her if he lets himself. Poor kid didn't deserve to get caught in the middle of this, but that's just all the more reason for him to make it a clean break.

So he shuts the door in her face, telling himself she's gonna be OK, and they're out of each other's lives for good. And when someone hurls rocks through every window in his house two days later, he's already a thousand miles away and never knows it.

Comments

[scarlettlily.livejournal.com]

The first one is awesome and the second is sad but needed for Faith and NOW we know where she got that damn phrase!

[makd.livejournal.com]

good one!

and yes: 5x5 is an old phrase from the 40s and 50s; it means, everything's okay.

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

Heartwrenching Faith backstory. Good job.

[lovedstrangely.livejournal.com]

this was really good. I love it. You had Jack describe Faith so well, and a 5x5 backstory is ALWAYS nice. :D

[nikitangel.livejournal.com]

Oh my. How beautiful and haunting and painful.

He ruffles her hair and she knows the game's up, so she smiles a smile that never reaches her eyes and nods. It's not her first break-up either.

Poor Faith's had a life full of break-ups. I think the saddest part of this story is knowing that it just kept going that way for her.

Thank you so much!

[faith-chaos.livejournal.com]

You made me cry. For real. I was already ultra sensitive from my last post but this really tops it all. I mean, this Jack guy, Faith wasn't his responsability but still... it hurts to know that this guy could have made all the difference in the world and that he meant so much to Faith at one point of her life that to this day she lives by what he told her. And this little girl that cried, you know, she like, CRIED, and opened up and look, LOOK at what happened. No wonder she learned to be the way she was, and damn, I'm getting rambly, aren't I?

I always thought this was probably how she got her trademark saying, and you made a fantastic job telling us. Thanks.

F, who is only sniffling now.

[jaded-jamie.livejournal.com]

The second one is amazing, they're all really good though : )

[empressvesica.livejournal.com]

The first made me giggle...the second. *wipes away a tear* Ouch. Lovely and OUCH.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

Dear Leath-R-Pantz-R-Us

As a former customer of yours, I wish to protest in the strongest possible terms about the lack of choice in your stock. Yes, black leather pants are all very nice. But what kind of outfitter for the sexy evil dead only stocks black? What about red leather? What about pink leather, for that matter? Unless you shake your ideas up pronto, I'll be taking my business elsewhere.

Yours faithfully

Buffy A. Summers


As for the Faith one, excellent as always. I keep having vague half-formed ideas about her early life, then you keep coming along and writing stories about them...
(I'd imagined that her eagerness to accept Wilkins as a surrogate father meant that she had to have at least some fond memories of a father (or step-father) - though of course her painfully obvious abandonment issues and brittle shell of self-reliance indicate that the father-figure wasn't around for too long...)

[thatotherperv.livejournal.com]

here by way of su herald. that was *heartbreaking* man. good stuff.

[darkershadeof.livejournal.com]

That ad is hilarious. And so true for the Buffyverse. :D

And the ficlet is great. I like that it's from a 'stranger''s pov, someone we don't know. And of course it basically explains all of Faith's issues/trademarks/character. I really like that there's so much stuff underneath what's actually there. (Or something, hard to explain, but you wrote it, so I hope you do get it. ;) )

Anyway, I loved both!

(And also, hi!)

[astrothsknot.livejournal.com]

Very realistic, painfully so

[brandil.livejournal.com]

Heartbreakingly wonderful.