(no subject)

[slybrunette]

Title: Christmas (Baby Please Don't Come Home)
Fandom: Lost
Characters/Pairings: Claire, Jack, mentions of Kate and Sawyer.
Prompt: Challenge #53 over at lostfichallenge
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,660
Summary: The influx of family proves to be too much for Claire this holiday season. 
Author's Note: This is post-island, but before the events of the season finale.

There’s a reason depression rates spike over the holidays.

 

Family. Nitpicky, nosy, overbearing family. And her house was swimming in it.

 

Okay, that wasn’t necessarily a true statement. It wasn’t her house, it was Aunt Lindsay’s house, Claire and Aaron were just living there for the time being. And there was no swimming, although it was hot enough for it.

 

It was the first year she’d been back from her little tropical-island-but-with-monsters experience, and so everybody who hadn’t come in to see her when she got back in the first place flew in for the holidays. Her Aunt couldn’t have been more thrilled. Claire on the other hand contemplated that she’d rather be back on the island than here, among this din of “look at you, so grown up” and “it must’ve been such a harrowing experience, how are you holding up”. The first she found condescending considering she was twenty-three and had a child, and the second she’d heard so many times from reporters that it had lost its meaning.

 

Still, Claire put on a happy face and weathered the storm because they were family, and that was what mattered right? It was only for a week or so, and it was only because they cared. She couldn’t fault them there.

 

Then Aunt Lindsay ganged up on her with Aunt Sheryl about her parenting skills, and how she should enroll Aaron in a daycare so he could be around other kids his age (and she was still having issues with letting him out of her sight after the island). She had kindly pointed that he was only one, and that she could bring him to work with her, which was the reason she’d even taken the job in the first place. There were a few holier-than-thou glares, and mini shouting match before she announced that she didn’t need their help, or them for that matter.

 

She hopped a flight from Australia to Los Angeles shortly thereafter.

 

It wasn’t as spontaneous as one would think. She knew where she was going, she’d even contemplated doing this once or twice before. She knew her Aunt and the rest of the family wouldn’t be too pleased with her when she got back, but she was a grown up, and it wasn’t like they could ground her.

 

Claire ended up knocking on a solid dark grey door at midnight, Aaron balanced on her hip, a bag on hand. She knocked five times, not bothered in the least by the time, before she got tired of standing outside looking like a fool to the neighbors, and yelled through the door, “It’s late, and I’ve got a toddler with me Jack, just open the door.”

 

The lock was undone seconds later, and he opened the door, looking tired, annoyed, and kind of wasted. “Sorry, I thought it was,” he made some strange motion with his hand, as if she could suddenly read minds, and walked back into the adjoining room, leaving her standing in the open doorway.

 

“Hello to you too,” she muttered as she stepped inside, and nudged the door shut, setting her bag down by the staircase. She followed him into the kitchen, her son hanging onto her shirt sleepily. “It’s past his bedtime, I need to put him to bed.”

 

“Spare room is upstairs, to the left, second door down.” He directed, gulping down the clear liquid that remained in the glass in front of him. Vodka. She could tell from his breath.

 

After she’d settled Aaron in she came back downstairs, sinking into one of the chairs in his kitchen. He said nothing, just continued to drink. “You’re incredibly talkative tonight,” she remarked.

 

He ran a finger along the edge of his glass, where his lips had just been, in this incredibly slow way his movements seemed to have taken on in the few months since she’d last seen him. “Why are you here?”

 

She shrugged, playing at the edges of her chipped fingernails. The red was supposed to festive, but here it felt slutty. “My family has taken over, and since nothing I say or do is right I figure I might as well leave, because what’s one more error on my part.”

 

“At least your family is still speaking to you.” He replied, casually as if he didn’t give a damn about his own.

 

“Your mom…?”

 

“Has yet to acknowledge that I still exist, because not only did I bring my father home in a casket but I managed to lose the body.” He never used to sound this bitter.

 

“Did you mention that you were in a plane crash?” She asked, jokingly of course because everyone knew that. She just didn’t understand why his own mother would give him flack considering the circumstances.

 

“That’s immaterial,” he told her.

 

She seemed he didn’t much like this topic, and her eyes found the window over the sink. “Why am I never anywhere near snow for Christmas?”

 

“It snows in Iowa.” He swallowed the entire shot in one gulp. It occurred to her that the only other time she’d seen him drunk was when he was about to get on a plane back to L.A., and that time he hadn’t been so sarcastic.

 

Claire frowned. “Iowa?”

 

Jack reached for something on the counter, hidden under a sizeable pile of mail. When he set it down she could make out the colorful design on the front but she had to squint at the picture because she didn’t trust her own eyes.

 

“Is that…?” She bit her lip, looking back up at him, looking for a reaction and finding nothing but vacancy.

 

“Yeah.” He responded, confirming that the woman on the Christmas card was indeed Kate. The photo must’ve been taken at her wedding, and she had her arms around a man Claire had only seen on the news. Well if that wasn’t just the tackiest thing to send the man who’d once confessed his love for you. “Apparently her and Andrew,” he said the man’s name like a curse, “are just as happy as can be.”

 

“That’s low.” Claire said. She knew the woman had done this to stay out of jail but there was no reason for her to flaunt her happy ending. It was temporary anyway. They all knew she’d leave him.

 

“That’s what Sawyer said, just in more words. Apparently he got one too.” He picked up the card, fingering the edges of the picture delicately, before tossing it to the side, and shaking his head. “Seasons fucking greetings.”

 

“Maybe she sent them out to everyone she had addresses for.” Claire said, lying if only to make him feel better. Kate had her address but didn’t send her one. Then again maybe it just hadn’t arrived yet, cross-continental mail and all. “I just can’t see Kate doing that on purpose.”

 

“That,” he motioned to the picture. “Is not Kate. That’s just who she’s decided she has to be.” The vacancy in his eyes was gone, replaced by something like sadness mixed with denial. “It doesn’t matter anyways. She’s moved on; I’ve moved on.”

 

Moving on didn’t suit him. Alone in his house, the night before Christmas Eve, as unfestive as he could be, short of turning green and stealing the who’s presents. She hated to think of him spending Christmas alone and she suddenly found the rhyme and reason for her travels. Leaving one part of her family for another.

 

She smiled sheepishly. “You don’t have a tree.”

 

He raised an eyebrow. “What the hell do I need a tree for?”

 

“It’s Christmas, silly. What’s Christmas without a tree.” She perked up significantly then. “We have to go get a tree tomorrow.”

 

“Why?” The bitterness from earlier seemed to have left him, even if he was still a bit drunk. He held his liquor pretty well at this stage of the game.

 

“What part of its Christmas do you keep forgetting?” He opened his mouth to speak but she didn’t let him. “Besides it’s your nephew’s first real Christmas, and we’re doing it right.”

 

He narrowed his eyes. “Do not use that. That’s unfair, not to mention manipulative.”

 

“You’ll get over it,” she informed him, suddenly excited about the prospect of having a nice quiet Christmas. When he went to pour himself another drink, however, she took it away, putting the glass in the sink, and the bottle in one of the cabinets. “And you’re going to sober up. Where did the alcoholic streak come from?”

 

“My – our – father.” He said, not even fighting back which surprised her to say the least. He went from angry to laid back pretty quickly she noticed, which worried her enough to want to stick around for a few days at least. “He spent the holidays drunk. I learn by example.”

 

“I take it I didn’t miss out on a lot?” She asked, tentatively, unsure of whether or not she should be asking. Part of her wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Plus, it kind of killed the mood.

 

“No, he was usually either working or in his office with a bottle of scotch. The only difference on holidays was that he turned into a calm drunk. Most of the family didn’t have a clue.”

 

“He never…” She wanted to ask if that meant he was an abusive drunk the other times, but didn’t have the heart to.

 

“No, he didn’t lash out. He was just very passive aggressive, very manipulative.” She could see his eyes sparkle with unshed tears, which he shook off. “He wasn’t my favorite person to be around.”

 

She let her hand fall to his shoulder, giving it a squeeze, before she sat back down. “All the more reason to break tradition and do our own thing.”

 

“Yeah.” It sounded more like a question than anything. The second time it sounded firmer, like an agreement. “Yeah, I guess.”

 

Maybe this Christmas wouldn’t be as horrible as she had originally thought.

Comments

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

I doubt we will because it doesn't feel very Lost-like to me, but I wasn't in the mood to ride canon.

Bitter drunks are fun ;)

Honestly I don't know. Although I originally wrote this thinking that she had done it accidentally on purpose, so that's all up to interpretation.

[bebitched.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean the plot, just the sibling thing.

If I had to guess I'd say that she did it subconsciously, not actively trying to hurt them but somewhere deep inside just wanting to provoke something.

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

I know what you meant. Still doesn't feel like it though.

Yeah, maybe she kind of wanted a reaction. I'm not sure.