Chapter Text
She sets the alarm to get herself out of bed early, before Luke gets up. She dresses in jeans and a hoodie and digs out one of Luke’s caps from the wardrobe. She puts on the hat and pulls the hood over her head before leaving the apartment and walking down into the closed diner. She heats some of yesterday's coffee as well as an old muffin and brings it with her to the pit.
She stays down there until dawn gives way to morning, morning to noon, watching the clouds chase across the sky, and tries distracting herself by reading Luke’s pristine pocket copy of Into the Wild when she needs to to block out the memories from yesterday. It’s hard. They’re sudden and strong and pounce when she least expects them.
Dean. She used to love him, or something like it, but now there’s no way… Now it’s impossible to separate what she’s experienced at his hands from every single one of their own memories. That night in the car, about a thousand years ago– she rationalised it, why she couldn’t say I love you back; There’s a lot of valid, intellectual reasons that she’s made true since then, and now they’re out the window. Instead she’s convinced, despite it being completely unreasonable, that she somehow knew who he was, what he could do, and that’s what held her back.
It’s nearing lunchtime. She gets hungry and smokes a few cigarettes to curb it, and to keep her, or his, nerves in check. Luke will expect her back this afternoon, to take over at the Diner while he heads to the opening of the Dragonfly. She has to get going at some point but keeps resisting, feels ridiculous staying away, and also completely incapable of handling anything else. The relief of making plans for Jess Mariano’s summer and possibly a future beyond it is long gone, and the despair over her situation is back with full force. She’s in the pit of the old Independence Inn while her beloved mother is opening her new Inn, and she has to miss it. There’s no more going through the maze or climbing out of it, she needs to be dug out.
After a while, she’s lost track of time, she picks up the phone and dials Mickey’s number. He picks up after a couple of signals.
“Rory?” He starts, and without waiting for confirmation goes on: “I got a hold of Sally, they’re looking into coming back, I just didn’t want to say anything until–”
She realises this isn’t what she needs from him, not that it makes it any clearer what she does need.
“Help me.” Her voice is rusty like she hasn’t used it for years. “I have to be myself again or I’m gonna lose it, I feel like I might die in here, and no one would even–” She stops herself with a hand over her mouth, shocked over how real the words are.
The silence on the other end is deafening.
“I know how you feel.” Mickey finally says. “But you’re not going to die. Just–” He sighs. “Where’s Jess?”
“Not here, we had a fight.”
She can tell he holds back a sigh on the other end.
“Here’s what you do:” He says. ”Keep breathing. Eventually an hour has passed, that’s one closer to home–”
“Or another hour away from it!” She bursts, voice thick.
“This isn’t a chronic disease.” Mickey objects. “You don’t get sicker, or worse. It’s the other way around, and either way you go, you grow.”
She’s so desperate, free falling, and can’t do anything but keep breathing so he gets to be a little bit right. She gasps for air, voice trembling in her breath.
“Why couldn’t Sally or Herman or whoever it was do the soulhopping thing with Jess themselves and leave me out of it?”
Such a useless sentiment, but Mickey takes it seriously.
“This can’t just happen with anyone! It’s the existing connection that makes it possible.” He pauses, maybe considering his own connections. “Like when you’ve already made a space for them inside, when you love someone so much they’re already part of you.”
She makes a little sound, a combination of a snort and a growl. Love. I think it has to be mutual . Mickey goes on, voice soft.
“Don’t fight each other, you’re each other’s best bet.” He says. “Go talk to him.”
“I’ll be sure to do that.” She hangs up intending to do no such thing, she didn’t tell Mickey about her damaged face and why she can’t be seen, by anyone.
On her way back to town she catches a glance of herself in the window of a store and halts in front of it. Sure, Jess put her in this body, but she’s the one who wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind. She did this to herself. She thinks of the car accident and how no one could think to blame Rory Gilmore, how it infuriated her.
If she had the capacity to clean up nicely she could be at the opening and do some good for his image, better their possibilities to sustain a relationship, any kind, going forward. Can’t be done now, not with this bruise, or with Dean running around the Inn. Dean who thought it was justified to do this to Jess, twice. Rory takes a shaky breath. The last of her anger runs off, but leaves her just feeling distraught, trapped in a corner.
What would she have told Jess if it was him in this situation, if he had bothered sticking around to talk to her after the last fight? She takes a deep breath, eyes on her reflection in the window, and tries to be honest. She probably would have thought he kind of had it coming, making such an enthusiastic enemy.
That was then, a lot has happened since, most of it in the last few days. She did do the things Dean accused her of, but he might very well have found an excuse to punch Jess even without her rampage, she has to face that option. And just because she paid for it on Friday doesn’t mean that put her back on rock bottom-Wednesday. In fact, she was doing pretty well last night, was busy and glad to be, and that’s the key; She has to get herself something to do. Rory Gilmore is good with a list even if it’s just in her head.
So, she leaves her spot in front of the window and drives to Woodbridge, has a few slices of pizza at the foodcourt at the mall there and feels a bit better for it. She visits a cyber café, actually performing a few of the tasks she planned to do yesterday.
Getting around meeting Luke with her face like this takes some calculating. But when that is done she texts him and lets him know she’ll be fifteen minutes late, and tells him to just hang the be right back-sign on the door. The response is naturally snarky, but affirmative, and she knows he won’t be late to the Dragonfly.
So she gets back to an empty diner, must be a slow afternoon with the opening. She unlocks the door, reluctantly pulls down the hoodie and takes off the cap. People walk by on the street outside and she’s relieved at every one that passes the diner. Especially Kirk, who walks by with Lulu and throws a glance through the window, spots her and her black eye, hurrying his steps. Kirk told me. She wonders how that whole interaction went down.
After a while she pours herself some coffee and opens up her book, leaning over it reading, forgetting about her surreal reality for a while. Then the bell chimes as the door opens.
It’s Lindsey Lister, no, Forester. Dean’s wife stops just inside the door at the sight of her, of Jess Mariano, probably regretting the decision that led her here. Rory blankly returns the look, until Lindsey gathers enough spunk to approach the counter.
“Hi.” She says, and Rory nods in response. “Can I get a coffee, to go?” She adds, maybe the mobility wasn’t in her original plan.
“Sure.” Rory breathes, turns to the coffee maker and grabs a container to fill. “Milk?”
“And sugar.”
Rory gets Lindsey’s order and places it on the counter, announcing the price. Lindsey pays and gets her change. She turns to leave but stops, again, right inside the door, hand on the handle.
“What happened to your eye?” She asks in the strangest tone, something split three ways; curiosity, admiration and fear.
Rory meets her gaze for a second before answering.
“I think you know.”
Lindsey’s eyes widen, and her expression becomes difficult to interpret. She swallows, then exits the diner swiftly and walks in the direction of her and her husband’s apartment.
After a couple of hours it’s clear that no one else is coming, so Rory flips the sign and heads upstairs. The Dragonfly opening means Luke won’t be back tonight, thank god. She cleans the apartment. It doesn’t take long, Luke is a pretty orderly guy, but it helps her stay calm. She cleans out Jess’s bag which, when turned upside down, rains tobacco flakes all over the floor. She sweeps them up, tosses them in the bin, and starts refilling the bag. She folds his clean clothes neatly and puts them into it, and reaches for his book pile. After a few titles she feels a familiar weight in her hand.
The book. It gets stuck in her grip, and this time she doesn’t hold back but opens it up randomly: Chapter 3 – Dealing with the idea of an ideal . She chuckles at the puns and starts reading.
So, when we talk about the perfect partner we are not dealing with perfection as some sort of abstract, objective concept, but rather as someone who’s perfect for you, friend. Not that that necessarily makes it easier to pinpoint or pick out of a lineup. When you imagine your perfect partner you should try to use real people as models for what you’re looking for. Ask yourself: Who do you love?
She flips ahead a couple of pages.
But sometimes love is not enough. Just because you love someone does not mean you see them clearly, so try to not get too hung up on deciphering specific people at this juncture but rather your perception of them. You see, even our misconceptions can tell us something about ourselves. Isn’t that neat?
She actually smiles, yes Paul, that is pretty neat.
What is it that you love about this person? Take note of everything about them that crosses your mind, no matter if you know it to be true or not. And if you’re having trouble finding a person as the subject for this thought exercise see page 27 of the workbook or listen to chapter 3 on the cassette companion.
She picks up the workbook, easily giving into temptation, flipping slowly through it. Mostly it’s self tests, check boxes and point summations, but occasionally answers and comments are written in the empty spaces. Or not so much comments as single words, and most of them in Luke’s handwriting. The few things she finds by Jess’s unmistakable hand are profanities or sarcastic rewrites of things from the text scribbled in the margins. She reaches page 27 and the questions:
Whose phone calls or visits are never unwanted or too long? Who would you most like to have in your life to ward off moments of loneliness? When you travel, who would make your travels more enjoyable? When you're in pain, who would you most like to comfort you? When something wonderful happens in your life, who do you want to share the news with? Do you see her face? Whose face appears to you?
The page is untouched, apparently nobody has needed to write anything here. Could be that nobody took the test, but it’s certainly on the tape. She picks up the cassette to inspect it and sees it has been played, the film is evenly divided on the reels.
She asks herself the questions, and finds she has people to fit as answers to every one of them – her mother, Lane, even her grandparents – but she’s meant to think of romantic options. She reluctantly tries, and finds that excluding her friends and family makes it almost impossible. At one point Dean’s face flashes before her eyes making her shiver before it fades to black, he’s never coming back to her in that capacity again. She drops the workbook and the cassette into the bag and opens up the main book again, this time starting with Chapter 1 – First do no harm to number one.
We’re doing a lot of affirmations in this book, and we do that to put the focus where it should be: on your relationship with yourself. There are books and books that tell you what to say in order to snag the ideal woman, but that’s not what we’re doing here. Those are cheap tricks that might land you a partner, but a partner to whom, my friend? To the character whose lines you’ve learned, or to you? The only person you should be polymorphing, the only person whose actions you can actually control are your own. So that’s who we’re working on.
She flips a few pages.
You see when we’re talking about deserving love that is just what we mean. Love. Not necessarily the love of another person, because that is not up to you to decide, friend. The only person whose actions you can affect are your own and the only love you have some sway over is the verb-kind. Serving is deserving.
She goes cold as it dawns on her that Jess probably wouldn’t think he deserved even to love himself. She remembers how he looked on Saturday and back in February, and thinks about his scars. She flips ahead to shake the bad feelings.
You need to learn to love yourself, and mind you, not the way a man loves a woman but the way a mother loves her child.
Her chest is thick with pain at once. Which mother is Paul referring to? She gets the gist obviously, but all mothers are not created equal, that she has learned, if not before then certainly this week. And then there’s the father she knows nothing about but who Jess preferred sleeping in a car to staying with. Her vision goes blurry.
The way a teacher cares for their student. The way a person pays attention to their best friend.
The pain intensifies. Jess didn’t finish high school. Jess doesn’t have a best friend. That was supposed to be her, and she didn’t pay the right kind of attention.
If you don’t take care of yourself, then who is going to, my friend, who?
Who indeed? She closes the book and shoves it into Jess’s bag, this is doing nothing for her damaged psyche.
She walks into the bathroom to wash her hands and rid them of the dust and tobacco flakes. She glances up into the mirror. Whose face appears to you? She knows with seering clarity what Jess would have answered. The water is still running over her hands and she turns it off and throws the arms around herself, drying them against her shirt. She recognizes his form under her hands, his body which is never given a thing and probably never was. But it’s not the same as hugging him as herself, and having his arms folded around her respectively. She misses it terribly all at once, being touched by him and getting to touch him.
She furrows her brow and tries to make him look like he did when he said he loved her. This face. How she’s searched every crowd for it, longingly, and in a form of terror. Dean was a surprise, he just landed on her. Jess though, from the moment they met she saw him coming, she expected him, she could never unsee him, so she looked for him everywhere, and still hasn’t stopped. As late as a week ago her heart skipped a beat when she thought she saw him at the bar in New Haven. It happens so often she’s used to it.
Now she stares at his face in the mirror in front of her, and it’s still not him. How is it not enough to look at his face when it’s right there? Because he isn’t. In the same way he looks like himself even inside her, like his distinct version of her, she still sees herself behind his eyes. She cannot be him, and it is him she’s looking for.
There’s no more going through the maze or climbing out of it, she needs to be dug out, she needs someone to do the digging. Whose face appears to you? She swallows thickly. This is definitely a moment of loneliness, and by now, there is only one person who can help her ward it off.
SUBSIDIARY SATURDAY
The Dragonfly is opening and Jess does his best to make up for his catastrophic Friday. He lets Lorelai pick out what he’s wearing meaning the same corduroy skirt as last Saturday, paired with a pink shirt and a green cardigan making him look like a cupcake, and there’s a dress laid out on the bed for dinner, objectively beautiful, he’s nervous just thinking about it. He’s doing his best Rory impression, a perky bounce to his step and general demeanor, smiling sweetly at everyone he has to interact with, helping out with as much as he can. Keeping busy actually makes passing as the town sweetheart easier.
All in all he thinks the effort is paying off. Lorelai is bursting with excitement shooting him glances full of it here and there which makes him work harder, even if the glances are meant for Rory.
He lost it on Thursday night, he shouldn’t have done that. He hasn’t seen Rory since then, he hasn’t looked, he’s been too embarrassed for that; He did this to her, he got her into this. He can’t forget or ignore that and his freakout was unjustified, especially considering she’s stuck in his sucky life. Hardly a fair trade. He should make up with her, but today there is absolutely no time for it. The guests are arriving at the Dragonfly, and he gets sent in to get the keys for Kirk and Lulu.
When he walks by the staircase he spots Dean struggling with a door and halts. If you see him again could you try to be a bit friendly? He really doesn’t want to. But his bad conscience is gnawing a hole in him and he has to take her word for it that there isn’t anything intimate going on between them. He walks back down repeating the words in his head: Saying hi can’t hurt. Except it does, and his smile is some of the heaviest lifting he’s done paired with the raising of his hand in a little wave.
“Hi.”
Dean doesn’t return the smile – after all that work Jess put into his. Instead he looks just like when Jess last saw him, and he hates him, but clenches his teeth and holds onto his friendly facade.
“I have to get this upstairs.” Dean says while at the same time putting the door down and shifting his weight, like he’s settling in for a conversation.
Jess stifles a sigh but leans on the wall behind him and makes an effort.
“So, what’s up?” He says.
Dean glares at him in silence until it gets weird.
“Are you upset about the other night?” Jess forces, holding on for dear life to his tone to not let it spin out of his control.
“I don't care.” Dean says, a bit too quickly.
“Clearly.” Shit.
Dean exhales sharply, openly annoyed, giving him a look and reaching for the door again. Jess didn’t promise Rory to repair anything between her and Dean but the least he can do is to not make things worse.
“Wait.” He says. “I didn’t ask him to show up, but I did ask him to leave.”
“Did I ask?”
Jess feels like punching him, but holds out his hands instead.
“Just, do what you want with that information.”
“Yeah, well, I'm working.”
“Whenever.” Jess feels like he’s never been this patient with anyone.
“I have to go.” Dean says, without making an effort to, then raising his voice. “And you told me to leave too!”
“It was kind of a private moment.” He should not be having this talk with Dean, there’s no way it turns out alright, but there’s no way out of it now. “It wasn’t meant to hurt you.”
Something soft flashes in Dean’s eyes and somehow it’s worse. It makes everything inside Jess squirm in protest. Dean shifts his weight and sighs.
“I thought you were back with him or something.” His voice is soft and pouty and makes Jess sick, so sick in fact that he can’t help his next line:
“Well, I’m not, but even if I was, why would it bother you so much?”
“I don’t like him.” Dean simply says.
“I noticed.”
“I don’t want you with him.” Dean adds.
“Right.” He looks at Dean intently, waiting for more, or for him to get it himself, but nothing, so: “You’re married though.”
Dean seems unduly insulted.
“So what if I am? Can’t I care about you? He treated you like crap and I don’t want that for you because I– I’m–”
Jess raises his eyebrows, doesn’t feel like helping him out of this mess. That's what girls do, help shitty boys rationalise being shitty, he knows all about it. But without help Dean doesn’t get further, his eyes dart frantically across Jess’s face, the face of his ex-girlfriend, and Jess, with all his instinct realises what’s about to happen too late. He was angling for some self-awareness on Dean’s part, for a penny to drop, but that was asking too much. Turns out that in Rory Gilmore’s body and this particular situation he is unconsciously fishing for something completely different.
Before he knows it Dean has put a hand on his neck and pulled his face to his. Jess’s instinct is to yelp, loudly, but instead he busts loose, bowing his head and neck out of Dean’s grasp, getting his hands, so far in his pockets, up and in between the two of them pushing Dean away, unfortunately not before their lips have touched.
“What the fuck!” The words exit him before he has a chance to stop them, and Dean glares at him, anger back in his eyes in an instant, before jumping at the sound of a voice.
“Rory,” Lorelai appears on her way in from the porch, eyes on her clipboard. “How about them keys?”
The last words trickle into silence as she lifts her eyes to regard the two of them and stops in the middle of the lobby; Jess with his hands held out between them as a shield, and Dean still suggestively towering over him.
“Dean.” She acknowledges slowly, like she’s reading the situation more carefully for each fraction of a second that passes.
They both gape at her for a moment before Tom effectively breaks the standstill when he stops at the foot of the stairs, addressing Dean with his particular brand of casual authority and general disinterest.
“Dean! How we doing with those doors?”
Dean mumbles some jumbled answer while Jess does all but spit to get whatever part of him that might’ve gotten on him off, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, frowning. Tom leaves and Lorelai gets engaged in a conversation with Miss Patty in the lobby. Jess looks back at Dean who’s staring at him, upper lip curled.
“He said you were.”
“Were what?” Jess growls, unable to contain his irritation.
“Back together, well, not in so many words but–”
“Jess said that? You talked?”
“Not in so many words.” Dean’s voice is like honey suddenly.
A movement catches Jess’s eye and he looks down on Dean’s hand twitching, closing and opening again. His unease grows as he recognizes the gesture, but then Dean grabs the door, swinging it widely, so Jess has to jump aside.
“I gotta go.” He says.
“Yeah, me too.” Jess manages even if his thoughts are miles away.
Dean takes a step but stops, turning his head and letting his glare chop into Jess.
“Rory, don’t come crawling back when he fucks you over again.” He hisses.
“Don’t worry I won’t.” Jess bites, while backing away from him.
He stays put until Dean’s clomping footsteps have disappeared up the stairs, then closes his fist repeatedly around the keys in his hand. It was a stupid thing to say, he should’ve just walked away, left it open ended, but was too angry and disgusted. It’s not lost on him that Dean didn’t question his Rory-interpretation once during this whole catastrophic encounter. It’s a full time gig keeping Lorelai convinced but Dean is all too willing to accept the worst in Rory, apparently. She would never have handled this situation like he did, and he goes cold imagining how it would have played out had she been in her own body. Would she have cowered and smiled, gone soft, avoided his advances or accepted them? But he shakes the question and focuses on another; Rory talked to Dean. Rory told him they were back together. Why would she do that?
He spots Kirk and Lulu and absent-mindedly hands them the keys.
He has to find Rory, to ask her what happened. Mickey told them not to split up, still they did, how could he have been so stupid? But the day, the inn test run, he can’t leave without causing unsolvable problems. He’s so caught up in the thought of it he almost walks into Lorelai who decisively sticks her arm around his and forcibly leads him toward the reception where Taylor stands waiting.
“That didn’t seem like nothing.” She remarks, glancing at him, but when he’s unable to answer she adds. “Unfortunately, I don’t have time for it right now. We’ll have to talk about it tomorrow.”
“I look forward to it.” Jess quips and finds that he doesn’t find the thought of it all too bad, what a difference a week makes.
Lorelai lets go of him and he remains by the wall watching the spectacle of her dealing with Taylor’s grievances, now and again caught by her panicked but also somehow humorous eyes as she’s smiling and nodding, listening to her first guest complaint.
He’s still deciding what to do with himself when Emily and Richard Gilmore walk into the lobby. He greets them along with Lorelai who’s face betrays nothing of her manipulative mechanisms. He finds himself regarding her with admiration as she sends them out toward the bungalow 150 feet away from the Inn.
“You sure Emily’s middle name isn’t Rosemary?” He mumbles to hide it.
“The mother is irrelevant, I have my father’s eyes.” Lorelai retorts with a steady gaze and without missing a beat.
He laughs and figures it out; He’s jealous. That’s what it is. Of Rory and her mother. Just having a mother like that, to talk to about nothing, to banter with. To have someone that naturally close to you. That’s what hurts about Lorelai saying she loves him – Rory, really – he believes it, for the first time in his life he believes someone is actually willing to back up the words with action, and explain the actions with words, and it isn’t even about him.
It’s at that moment Luke walks into the lobby. Lorelai strokes her hair behind her ears, cheeks blushing, and she leaves Jess behind the counter going to greet his uncle. Jess watches them, amused, and he can’t hide a thing in this face, because Lorelai reprimands him as soon as Luke is out of earshot, but all the while smiling, which is supposedly a good thing.
The evening passes, and stays busy. He changes into the evening attire and has dinner together with the guests. As it gets later and everyone is relaxing in the dining room, playing games and chatting lowly, he gets more and more anxious. And as enjoyable as it might be kicking Tom’s ass in cards, it still doesn’t help the thought that he should check on Rory. The feeling might be getting stronger from the fact that he actually is enjoying himself, when it was meant to be her here tonight, sharing the experience with Lorelai and kindly letting Tom win. He’s antsy and is struggling to find an excuse to leave.
Then finally Lorelai asks him to get CD’s from the house, and he jumps at the opportunity. He goes to fetch his jacket, but when he gets back Emily’s voice is cutting through the lobby as she takes Lorelai’s head off for putting her and Richard in the bungalow.
He leans on the doorway listening until it’s clear they’re leaving, Lorelai is swamped with this guy Jason who she apparently used to date, so Jess offers to follow them out. He puts on the jacket and follows them like a shadow, and they don’t quite take notice of him until they’re getting into the car.
“Well.” Richard says, slightly startled. “Goodbye Rory.”
“The keys.” Jess just says.
“What?”
“You need to leave the keys.”
Richard fumbles for the room keys and Jess walks down the stairs taking them from his grasp and putting them in his jacket pocket.
“She was only trying to help you, you know.” He says.
Emily and Richard both look like they’ve been caught in the act, guilty for a very real moment, but then both their faces close up in their different ways; Emily in chilly stubbornness, and Richard in sullen insistence. They say goodbye again, get into the car and drive off. Jess takes a breath in the privacy of the driveway, and is about to leave when steps approach from behind him and Lorelai reaches his side.
They stand next to each other watching the taillights of the car disappear.
“I’m sorry.” He says, before he knows why,
“For what?” Lorelai asks. “You’ve been doing so great today!”
“To make up for getting drunk, for that thing with Dean–”
She interrupts, which is a very good thing, because his list is long and mostly to do with the sins of Jess Mariano.
“Please don’t apologize about that!” She exclaims. “From what I saw it was pretty clear who was overstepping, honey.” She puts an arm around him. “I hope you’re done with whatever was going on with him now.”
“I do too.” His chest feels too tight, he has to let it. “And I’m sorry if I gave you a hard time about Jess.”
“Jess?” Lorelai frowns. “Why would you bring him up?”
His heart beats so hard.
“I wasn’t there when you met and I didn’t see– him being such a dick–” He’s rambling, but can’t help it. “You’re not naîve–”
Lorelai drops her arm.
“And you’re nothing like Doctor Laura.” He finishes, agitated.
He has time to take a breath before realising that Lorelai is staring at him, he carefully turns his head glancing at her.
“You got drunk.” She says, voice low, face serious.
“I said I was sorry–” he starts, a bit spun.
“You’ve been acting weird all week.” She continues, voice flat and faltering. “And the words you’ve been using, your body language–”
He goes cold. She never mentioned him calling her naive, or comparing her to Doctor Laura when she told him about their first meeting. The warm evening is chilly all of a sudden and Jess and Lorelai stare at each other.
“Who are you?” She whispers.
He stops breathing, just looks at her, with no idea how to answer. Her eyes go shiny.
“Jess?” There’s no tone in her voice, the sound is just a hiss.
He feels his face go tight, it’s his instinct and the expression must appear strange in Rory’s sweet features.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Another one of his go-to expressions, Rory would never say that.
And accordingly Lorelai’s gaze rests at him, unyielding. They stand like that for a few seconds that seem like an hour, measuring each other with their shared stare, before Jess manages to break the spell.
His hand in his pocket closes around the keys. The keys to Lorelai’s house, the keys to the suite, and the cold metal wakes him up. He pulls his hand from the pocket and hooks a thumb toward Lorelai’s house. She twitches from the sudden movement. He forces a smile.
“CD’s.” He says, and gestures to the entrance. “And you should probably go inside. You got an ex-boyfriend and a boyfriend-to-be under the same roof with no supervision.”
She actually takes the bait and turns to leave, but not before shooting him another glare.
“We’re not done.” She states.
“We never are.” He responds, but turns and walks down the driveway.
The lights of the Inn’s front yard disappear behind him and the darkness of the woods enfold him. Cicadas sing in the bushes so loudly that it almost shuts out Lorelai’s words in his head. Almost. The sky is dark and velvety above him. He stops for a second, face turned up and is about to start walking again when a twig breaks, right behind him. He spins around and sees a hooded figure at the tree line. It takes a terrifying amount of seconds before he recognises himself in the darkness.
“Fuck, Rory!” He exclaims. “I almost shat myself”
“Sorry.” Her voice, his, is a hoarse whisper.
“What are you doing here?”
There’s a pause.
“I don’t know, I just wanted to see you, talk to you, I know it’s a bad night for it.”
He nods, looks in the direction of the Gilmore house.
“Can we go somewhere?” She asks.
He abandons the mission. An ex-boyfriend and a boyfriend-to-be under the same roof should actually keep Lorelai too busy to think about the CD’s for a while, and checking in on Rory was what he was really meant to do anyway. He takes a step toward her, but she takes a matching step backward, and the maneuvering with Dean earlier resurfaces in his mind along with a by now vague recollection, a fist closing and opening. He squints at her, but it’s too dark for him to be able to read her expression, they do need to go somewhere else.
“Yeah, he says, I kind of need to talk to you too.” He pauses and pulls on the lower lip, thinking, before speaking again. “Come on, let’s go to the honeymoon suite, it’s empty. No one will look for us there.”
He takes the lead back toward the Inn and they reach the yard.
“Stay behind me.” He instructs, and walks along the stable wall in direction of the bungalow, his eyes stuck at the entrance, but no one’s there.
He gets out the key to the suite and unlocks it, letting her sneak in first before following.
SATURDAY, STRETCHED
Rory walks into the suite. Her mother really outdid herself; the room is gorgeous, you can tell despite the light streaming in through the window being dimmed. While the rest of the Inn is in the style of classic americana this room has a different vibe, the busy floral prints have been abandoned in favor of layers and layers of thin monochromic cloth, notes in apricot to powder pink, some wood carvings and a few lanterns placed and hung throughout the room. There's a generous bed placed in the middle with fluffy linens artfully draped over it. A big, ornamented rug ties the room together by connecting a divan and an armchair placed next to a bookshelf on the left to the understated sink, minibar and a small atrium leading to the bathroom on the right. A small desk with a chair is placed next to the window.
Jess locks the door behind them, turns and walks straight into a chair, cursing loudly, then limps up to the window pulling down the curtain. But Rory doesn’t turn on the light. She knows it’s just a matter of time before she’ll have to reveal her disastrous face, before he’ll see, but, just a few moments more.
”Your grandparents were supposed to stay here but they left.” He starts, hesitantly. ”They’re really at each other’s throats, huh?”
It goes quiet. Under normal circumstances she would express worry over Richard and Emily, but tonight she has bigger problems. Why did she come here? She should have stayed away. She urges herself to simply turn and walk out the door, but the body doesn’t move.
An indian burn is what he called it, what her body does at the sight of him. She knows what feeling he’s referring to even if she denied it. But she wouldn’t have described it like he does anyway: plain pain, or discomfort is more likely her chosen words, but she knows now they’re neither fair nor honest. And as for his body; There’s a pull in it, almost like gravity, its limbs feel heavier when it’s close to hers.
“Turn on the light on the bedside table, will ya?” He says, making her realise no one has spoken for several moments. ”I can’t see shit.”
She reluctantly obeys, then straightens but keeps her eyes to the floor, afraid to look at him.
“What the hell are you wearing anyway?” His voice is actually amused. “Trying to give Taylor something real to worry about?”
Under any other circumstances she’d laugh, but won’t, can’t now. He loses his patience anyway and walks toward her, but freezes halfway there. She forces herself to fold the hood back and remove the cap. She remains standing with it in her hands while seconds pass, working up the courage to meet his eyes. Then she does.
His expression, there are no words for it.
“What happened?” He whispers.
Her aim is to answer the question as calmly and accurately as possible, but she can’t get her voice to work, despite attempts.
“Dean.” He says himself, pale.
Tears, finally. Like she hasn’t wished for them this entire week they just fill her eyes and run down her cheeks, hot like blood. She sniffles, and nods. The silence that follows is eerie. Her tears keep running, and she blinks to be able to see him clearly.
Strange how someone so pale can seem to burn. It makes her think about that phenomena when something is so hot it feels like ice when you touch it. Her own face and that level of rage – It looks odd, and she wonders if she’s ever made that face to someone else, tries to remember if she ever has had cause to look like that. He’s so angry that he even seems to vibrate a bit at the edges.
“I’m going to kill him.” He obviously has trouble keeping the voice steady.
Rebellious laughter bursts out of her.
“Oh yeah? How are you gonna manage that, Tiny?”
“I know a few tricks.” He growls.
She starts by shaking her head. Maybe dismissing said tricks, but no, it’s nothing of the sort; It’s a plea. She knows what it feels like now, getting punched, and is sick from the idea of Jess doing that to someone else, even Dean.
“No!” It comes out panicked, shaking, and she takes a breath to be able to steer the alien voice better from here on out. “No more violence, I can’t take it.”
That’s what she gets out before falling to her knees in front of the bed, crying in deep sobs. The convulsions are painful, it is clear that this body hasn’t cried in a while. It tilts over until the forehead is leaning against the soft carpet. There’s just her and that and the darkness around her, and she could stay here forever.
But he doesn’t let her. He kneels next to her pulling her upward, his grip shaky from the effort, and maybe something else. The gravity and tingling warmth she felt when they were sitting back to back is back and now it pushes more words from her.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t understand.”
She’s not even sure what she’s referring to. It could be about Dean and his fists, it could be about every shitty detail of Jess’s life and body that has been profoundly real to her this week.
“What are you sorry for?” He objects, voice thick. “You didn’t do this. None of this is your fault.”
“Yes it is!” She wails, unable to hold it back, reason be damned, it feels true, even if it isn’t.
He gives up on trying to lift her and sits down next to her on the carpet, leaning in and grasping her chin, lifting her face, forcing her to look at him.
“No, it’s mine, remember?” He takes a few breaths and his expression changes while the words supposedly land with him as well.
His eyes run panicked laps over her damaged, tear-ravaged face, and he looks more and more upset.
“I did this. To you.” His gaze lands at her bruise and his voice breaks. ”I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He’s crying now too. She has to get it together somehow or they’ll stay on the floor all night. He has dropped the effort to get her up so she picks it up, she’s the strong one now. She puts a hand to the carpet and one around his waist pushing them both up. She manages to get him seated on the edge of the bed while she’s still kneeling before him. His eyes and nose are red, and she reaches for his face, hers, and strokes the tears from it trying to calm herself at the same time. He meets her eyes, mirrors the gesture, hands closing around her cheeks. It feels good, and is the only thing that doesn’t hurt right now.
She puts both arms around his waist, pushing herself close to him. Her head against his chest. His reach is limited at this angle but his arms come around her neck and shoulder holding her in place, and he tips forward, leaning the chin on top of her head.
Her convulsions slowly cease at the pressure of the embrace and her first unhindered breaths offer such release it makes her soft and warm inside. She almost chuckles at the fact that he’s sitting exactly how she told him not to seven days ago, legs spread like a guy. But it’s good now, because it enables her to get as close as she is.
Still, closer would reasonably be better. She acts on an impulse and pulls him toward the edge of the bed, over it and onto her lap, one leg on each side of her. And they’re back on the floor again. He tenses slightly but then adjusts and takes a new grip on her, holds her tighter. Something coils inside her, inside his body, fills and holds itself in place, it has something to do with the weight and scent, the softness of her tummy, she vaguely registers.
The tingling becomes a buzz, almost a vibration, and it cracks something solid inside, the pieces of it disintegrating. The warmth spreads throughout her and makes her, lets her feel all of it, including the love, the stupid love.
“I don’t know why I still love you.” She mumbles into the skin of his neck, voice brittle but unstoppable. “I don’t know, it’s just… I just do.” She sniffles. “And I feel it in you too, it’s like a hum in here every time we…”
She falls silent when he pulls back to look at her, and she dries the tears still clinging to her cheeks, suddenly a bit embarrassed. She keeps talking, making sense of it as she goes.
”It is requited, mutual, just-” She goes quiet.
”Complicated.” He finishes, and she nods. “I can live with complicated.” His gaze rolls over her like he can’t get enough.
She manages a tiny smile.
“What?”
“My face,” he whispers. “It’s so soft on you.”
Her voice comes out shaky.
“Well, it’s yours.” She says. “You have it in you.”
His breath dances between them and takes hold of her, like a hook, but it’s he who gives in first and kisses her.
The touch is electrifying. It’s her love, her longing, but it’s his body too, every nerve coming alive, gaining weight and agency from the contact of their lips. If she didn’t know better she’d say there’s energy crackling from the light friction of their skin. The arms around him tighten on their own accord.
She’s accustomed to the lust of her own body, rarely revealed, at least not lately, and never completely. Maybe it’s a virgin thing, you need to level up to gain access to all parts of the spectra, at least that’s how Paris put it when Rory got up the nerve to ask. But she doesn’t feel that now anyway, she feels his lust, his body responding, and it makes her dizzy; It’s quick and heavy, and fucking crystal clear.
He parts his lips and she makes instant use of it pushing her tongue inside. So strange, tasting her own mouth with the help of his, strange, and exciting. The sensation forces a sound from her and she has to say something for it to not just become an incoherent groan.
“Oh my god.” She breathes while her fingers curl around the cloth of the dress. “Is this what it’s like for you every time?”
There’s a tiny pause and when he answers she feels his mouth move against hers.
“No,” he says, a creak in his voice. “Just with you.”
He kisses her again and she holds on for dear life, it’s the only way to keep her body still, to stop it from doing its own separate will.
They keep kissing and she doesn’t know who she is. No, that’s not right. She is Rory Gilmore, but it doesn’t matter what shape she comes in anymore. The so-called separate will merges with hers and her hands make a break for it, make their way to his waist and her body jerks as a result. The whole kissing-yourself-conundrum isn’t much of a conundrum at all as it turns out when the right combination of bodies are involved, and she catches herself thinking about what Mickey said about the temple, thinking that the walls are cancellous with rhizoids from moss. And she could let go, surrender the power to his body, let it happen, and never think twice about any of it.
The possibility crystallizing in her mind makes it harder to keep the grip on control, so she forces herself to consider him. How is he holding up, he who didn’t even want to kiss? His eyes are closed but he’s definitely participating in this; hands placed on her neck and shoulders, fingers moving over and slipping under the surface of her shirt, a slight shiver running through him at even intervals. She’s desperate to know what he’s feeling all of a sudden. It’s easy to guess what she would be going through had she been back in her body, but not how he experiences it. Her thought is elastic and stretches toward him. She’s about to pull back to get a glimpse of his expression when she feels it:
Her body. From the inside. The sensation lays itself on top of those she’s already experiencing and it’s like seeing colors she has been blind to. She feels the cloth of her dress on her chest, the friction over nipples is really nice. Without thinking about what it means she puts a hand over her own breast. He gasps.
“Holy shit,” he moans, equal parts chock and lust in it.
“You feel it too?”
“Your hand is my hand.”
They stare at each other for a moment, both breathing heavily with open mouths, before closing the gap again, with greater fervor than before. The more hesitance slips away the clearer the double exposed feeling gets. Not only does she feel his lust, sharper than she’s accustomed to, but her own as well, slow moving, sweetly aching. It’s double and doubled and completely impossible to resist.
“Take it off.” She whispers, failing to add tone to her voice and he groans.
“I’ll tear it”, he mumbles, urgency in his voice, “your mom had to zip me up.”
A laugh bursts out of her, and it feels good. Not just to relieve the pressure but to be allowed to make sounds that aren’t words. She has trouble breathing for a few seconds before getting herself together. She leans her forehead to his and reaches to the back locating the zipper, and skillfully pulling it down.
He chuckles.
“Have you done this before?”
“No.” She answers, serious all at once. “Never.”
He stops smiling, and it’s almost dangerous to behold, this expression in combination with his rapid breaths and pupils so dilated it makes the normally blue eyes almost black.
“Rory, we don’t–”
“If you’re about to say we don’t have to do this, shut up.”
“We don’t, we can wait to hear from Mickey–”
“This is what Mickey thought we should do to begin with.”
“Well, I don’t think you should make a decision like this based on–”
“A body swap?” She helplessly laughs. ”What? You don’t think a magically induced out-of-body-into-other-body-experience and its accompanying existential crisis merits a drastic decision?”
“If you weren’t a virgin–”
“I told you to shut up.” She bites. “Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel yourself in me?”
“Yes.” He swallows.
“I haven’t felt my own body for a week and I never put much stock in it I’ll admit, but as it turns out I’ve really missed it.” She bites her lip, mind made up by now. ”This is what we’re meant to do.”
He takes a shaky breath.
“What if it doesn’t work? You’ll hate me.”
“I couldn’t.” It’s true, and she knows it as soon as she hears herself say it. ”I won’t ever again.”
He’s quiet, and she leans in to kiss him but is interrupted by his words, quick but decisive:
“I love you.”
He’s told her before, when she was in her winter coat and agitated, but it’s a new sensation now, hearing it when her body is already on fire; The words sweep over and into it like they’re stroking actual nerve endings.
And suddenly she knows exactly how this whole debacle is possible, and why this is going to work to sort it; The separation between body and soul, it’s just the result of an underworked muscle.
This whole week has been so weird, so insane that she’s thought about committing herself more than once, and that’s what Mickey meant by telling them to go through the maze, they have to escalate, and they have to be together, they have to let it get as crazy as it possibly can. She sort of knew it on Wednesday already, but back then the thought of it was so outlandish she couldn’t bear it, even midst the surreality. Even inside him she clung to the rationale of hating him and never wanting to let him touch her again. But now it seems like the only thing to do, everything about it right and natural. The only way out is through and it’ll be pleasant too.
She pulls down the dress to his waist and unhooks the bra in the back, stroking her hands down the bare skin of his back, feeling the caress herself too.
“Woah.” He tears the bra off and reaches, pulling the hoodie off her.
A stray laugh escapes her at the directness of his action; she wouldn’t have done that, and certainly not like that.
They’re both bare chested now and it’s a malstrom of weird and insanely magnetic. They stare at each other for a moment, heartbeats rolling through them both like earthquakes, she feels them in her body as well as his. Then the muscles in her go firm and she finds herself getting up and lifting him along for it, near-swooping him up onto the bed. He falls back onto the mattress, and she grabs the dress at the waist pulling it all the way off, she tries to be gentle but finds that for a critical second she’s back in her first awkwardly clumsy stage in this body.
He’s almost completely bare and she’s looking down on herself, so fucking feverishly afraid. He puts arms around her neck and pulls her closer until their faces are less than an inch apart, and holds still there so she can feel his rapid breath on her face.
“I’m scared too.” He says, eyes shut, and she feels like crying again, it seems easy now.
It’s getting hard to separate feelings and which belong to whom. She’s afraid because she is indeed a virgin, even if the body she’s in isn’t, and he’s afraid for the opposite reason, supposedly, the details of his feelings are still a little fuzzy but seem to get clearer by the second. He still holds her in place and meets her eyes again.
“Keep going.” He urges.
A sob escapes her as she leans her body down on his and starts kissing him again. It is decided and the joint decision makes the sensation of being two people in one body or just one and the same stronger, more rhythmic. It’s like being washed up on a beach, water moving her onto soft ground and breaking over her.
Even with her eyes open her vision shifts; she sees herself underneath his body, she sees him looking down on her. Both bodies ache but in slightly different ways, there’s some anxiousness in hers, anticipation, and sharp longing in his, that has to be held back to not take over. But it doesn’t matter, the aches belong to the both of them, what she feels he feels.
She closes her eyes and lets the body act on its own, unbuttoning pants and getting them off. The need to escalate, get closer is so strong, but she finds that if she pauses, for just a second, it settles enough for her to be able to hold onto it. Maybe she figures it out on her own, or maybe he’s the one teaching her somehow.
She hooks fingers into the rim of his underwear. Meanwhile he’s strangely passive, holds onto her and breathes deeply, veiled eyes on her, and she’s about to ask about it before the answer is clear to her; He may be in her body but it’s hers, and the decision of what to do with it is ultimately hers too. And when she understands that, it really dawns on her what’s about to happen, any minute now. She pauses again and gasps for air, grasping his hips, struggling to hold still.
“I don’t know how to do this.” She mumbles.
“Yeah you do.” He answers, reaches for her hands and pushes them down the legs along with the panties, his grip slightly shaking. “I on the other hand…” His voice falters.
She laughs in a desperate gasp, and kisses him, mumbling against his mouth.
“I wish I could help with that but I would probably be as awkward in my own body as I am in this one right now.” She leans her forehead to his and they hold still like that for a moment. “Just–” She reaches for one of his hands moving it down between his legs and leaves it there. “I just know about that,” she goes on, so embarrassed she’s beyond it, “so you better start there.”
He stops breathing as he moves his hand and she watches her own face on him twitch and change as the fingers find the right spot. He gasps and exhales sharply with a little whimper. Up until this moment she’s been unsure about if he has respected her bodily integrity as well as she’s demanded of him, but it’s his reaction now that convinces her that he has.
Some devilish inspiration takes hold of her and she joins her hand to his, she knows exactly how to touch herself. He jerks at the touch and becomes busy violently clinging to her, hiding his face in her flat chest to muffle his sounds but the word fuck is definitely in there. She smiles, widely; This is fun.
He comes, in itself a sight to behold, and the sensation vibrates through her too. Just days ago she would have said it was nothing but an echo of her own experiences or an effect of empathy. Cancerous, she called it in her own head, just days ago, but moments ago she referred to it as rhizoids, roots. When you love someone so much they’re already part of you , that’s how Mickey explained it, and things are different enough for her to believe it completely now. If she ever gets back to her own body she’ll be forever changed by it.
He holds onto her, forehead in the crook of her neck, panting, with voice audible in the breaths, as the orgasm subsides, then he pulls back his head, eyes closed firmly at first, but he opens them soon enough looking at her with a pleading expression.
“What?”
“I think I–” he starts, but stops and reaches out a slow hand and places it to the side of her face.
He lets it rest there for a few seconds, but she swears she can feel his intent even before he starts dragging it downward. It strokes her neck, shoulder and chest, and his eyes follow it as it goes. Another wave of his lust swells in her, so strong that she completely forgets to feel ashamed over her wrong body including its private parts – some not known for their retractability.
Rory Gilmore, it could be a boy’s name.
The thought is there, and when he takes hold of her, struggling only slightly with the angle, she feels the distinct need for profanities too. Still, it’s fair she supposes, she had the same effect on him just minutes ago, and gives into it. He places his lips to her neck when he touches her, and she closes her fists around the duvet cover in some vain effort to hold his body still, it twists and twitches and wants something very specific. He keeps moving his hand and wave after wave of him enjoying himself wash over her as he leans his head back and lets out a moan. She feels like she’s about to fall over an edge when he slows his pace and softens the touch. His hand moves to the skin of the stomach, and she whimpers softly as the fingers strokes her up and down. There’s a gust of air from an exhale and she looks at him. He’s smiling, strangely, softly, and meets her eyes.
“I think I’ve missed my body too, but...” His words trail off.
“What?” She pants.
“Knowing it’s you in there…” he says, unsteadily, “you were smiling a little. It was–”
She has trouble responding, it’s too much, the feeling of his words combined with all her thoughts about him and his life, his scars, that have been swarming her head for the last twenty four hours, the sensation of his touch, her need, his. She manages to nod, to meet his eyes and offer a trembling smile, but finds his entire body shaking.
“I’m not sure I’m alone in here.” She says.
He observes her, reading the state of her. His hand slips down to hers, still clutching the cloth of the bed, and loosens its grip, tangling their fingers together. She looks at their hands, calming herself some as the edge of the lust is dulled.
“Hey.” He says and her eyes flick back to his.
He rolls onto his back and pulls her along, onto his side.
“Go on.” He whispers, and she sees all the things she’s feeling in his face.
She rolls onto him, wedging herself between the legs, but pausing there. The tingling, the buzz, the vibration becomes a roar in her head and body and she feels her own at the same time under the weight of his, the ache. She kisses him, and for a second there she really is back in her own body lifting her knees toward her torso, pushing his body to hers with her feet.
They gasp in unison as his body pushes into hers, but the shifting between who’s feeling what becomes steadier, stronger. Like a pendulum swinging between two poles.
And there it is; she’s a virgin, and there’s a definite moment, several actually, of discomfort, of something stretching, reshaping, possibly tearing, but the sensation is shared, as well as the experience of his body; The relief of losing control and letting all his longing. The pain and pleasure mingles, she feels them both.
He cries out, he, who rarely speaks, makes noises. And she, who’s never had sex before and has nothing to compare it to, is overcome by the thought: How different it is wound to be for normal people, people who know all their parts, who knows where everything goes, and how it goes. How she’ll never know that. Anytime anyone will refer to what it’s supposedly like losing your virginity, Rory will nod like she knows, but she won’t. This is all she’ll ever know, he is. Even if this works, even if they get back what’s theirs she’ll never have sex with anyone else. It’s clear and makes as little sense as it is absolutely true and chilling; How could she ever share this with anyone else after what they’ve been through? Her next exhale sounds like a sob.
And just like that, she’s in his head and knows what his first time was like: He was drunk, naturally, there was a girl back in New York who had all the wrong ideas about what love was. She acted tough but he was further gone, more cynical. People were only good for owing each other stuff, favors. It was commerce. It was lonely. It was like scratching an itch. And he felt bad afterwards. Maybe the girl did too, he didn’t ask. Now he thinks about her because here he is, getting a second chance to have a first time all over again, with someone he loves no less, and it’s insanely different, possibly from anything anyone has experienced. And the girl in New York might have a witch-friend in the New Age community but probably not, so she won’t get a second chance. And maybe she wasn’t even a virgin, he didn’t ask, and perhaps he was more naîve than he’d like to think, but still: a second chance. So, he relishes the pain. It seems like a fair price to pay, a tribute of sorts, to feel this, to have this. And he thinks about Herman and Sally and Mickey and is grateful to all of them.
She gasps, and moves inside him. Did she just read his mind? Or is it more moss on the walls? She looks down on him in her body and up on him where he belongs and feels it all; He’s taken by her lust, how it overwhelms her body and makes it hard to steer and control as it seeps down the legs to the soles of the feet and up through the torso pushing sounds from the mouth. His body on the other hand is unable to be still, is all purpose. But the different kinds of sensations mix and make up new ones, strong ones, sentient even, with powers of their own.
What is she thinking when she isn’t looking, and can he read her mind like she does his? And then she helplessly thinks of Dean. Her first time could very well have been last Saturday, if Jess hadn’t shown up. She would have invited him into her empty dorm, and lost her virginity there. He would’ve claimed it while cheating on his wife, multitasking. She would’ve carried the pain all alone and probably been reminded of his marital status halfway through. Where does Lindsey think you are? She wouldn’t have known about his fists and how their punches feel landing on you, but she would’ve felt his anger; the one he held toward her for not saying I love you, for falling for someone else and being unable to confirm or deny it, and ultimately for making him an adulterer, it matters less that he hasn’t technically cheated yet, because he would have. She knows that now and that he harbours these feelings, but last Saturday she would’ve just sensed it. And she would’ve felt bad during, after, she would’ve felt alone.
She’s not alone now though, just the opposite. She and Jess are so together, in every sense of the word. They make up a world of their own in which they are the only two inhabitants. She feels silly for underestimating what it would mean to be this close in a moment like this. And she finds herself feeling grateful too. To him for coming to talk to her and rescuing her in the process, by getting her out of that situation, and her own head, literally.
Their gazes lock as she finishes the thought and someone, unclear who, but probably him, forces their faces together and they kiss deeply, losing any semblance of coherent thought. There are sounds, moans and whimpers, muffled by lips, tongues, distorted by mouth cavities sealed by muscles, flesh and skin. Her legs lock around his hips, her body tensing. His hands caress her face.
The shifting is quick, she’s back in her own body on every other heartbeat, and back in his on the others. It’s unclear who initiates actions, who follows them through. They’re one, in the truest sense of the word. She initiates him bending to kiss her nipple because she was always curious about how it would feel, and by the time his mouth is on her breast she’s back in her own body experiencing it. He means to say I love you, needs to, but he’s back in his body when she says it, and hearing it turns out to be of equal importance; Weird how words, manifestations of abstract things like thoughts and feelings, non corporeal things can have such a fundamental effect on the body, can make him rock hard and helpless, can make him come.
She’s deep inside him and he shakes as her muscles cramp around him. It’s tight and wet and hot and hard and there’s a hunger, a need to fill and be filled and to fit together, get closer.
She hears orgasms from penetrative sex is hard for a lot of girls, but he comes, so she does too. It’s a riptide, blood crashing through veins, necessary. It’s glorious and she cries out, and it’s her own voice. She keeps making sounds as she comes down to keep her grip on reality, to hold onto the moment, to stay in her body.
And miraculously, she does.
His body remains on top of her, its weight delicious. He breathes in her ear, trying to get it together, and the pleasure slowly gives way to more practical sensations: his hip bone pushing into the softness of her inner thigh, the sweat caught between them starting to itch, the sting inside her body from being pried open, the stray thought that they didn’t use any protection, the taste of her own mouth, his breath rushing in her ear, brushing against the side of her face. All the awkward inputs from the physical reality that is hers, and it’s heaven. She starts crying in relief.
He lifts himself onto shaky arms, frees a hand to stroke her face, to gather her tears as they sneak down the side of it. She blinks some clarity into her vision and looks at his face and him inside it, and a small fit of laughter breaks through a sob. He smiles, eyes moving across her.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” He finally says.
She laughs again, and pulls his face to hers kissing him with an open mouth. The remnants of lust stir and start sprouting and have traces of him left in it. She purrs mid-kiss and feels very motivated to explore it further: how much of him that’s left in her, how much she gets to keep. And then: an inexplicable sting from their separation, the physical one and the potential of further distance. But even that makes her happy, somehow, and she covers it up with words of her own anyway.
“You’re the one who’s beautiful.”
He actually laughs, apparently not finding the thought quite so strange anymore. His eyes gleam and start exploring her body, and she takes his que and does the same. She’s studied it during the last week only under the hardest concentration, to not lose balance, but doesn't have to worry about that now. There’s hunger and fascination but she feels she’s barely gotten started when his mouth lands on hers again and they kiss with hands on each other, extracting sensations and pushing expressions from the other and themselves. It builds and is about to take over again and she can’t help a chilling thought;
What if it happens again? As the words take clear shape in her head he freezes, like he heard her. They exchange a look and she knows, with certainty, that he has, in some way. The corner of his mouth twitches and he looks away, like he can’t face her while he mumbles.
“Look, it’s not science, but if it happened again… would that really be so terrible?”
She laughs at the outrageousness of his words, the proximity of them to everything that has happened, but tries to make it sound cocky.
“I guess there’s no one more qualified to care for my body if I should lose it again.”
“Dito.”
She slaps his shoulder.
“You should take a look in a mirror.”
He stops smiling.
“There are worse things than shiners.”
He kisses her again, but this time she can’t let go of the thoughts demanding her attention. The room makes itself known. The soft bed sheets, the scent of new furniture, the faint sound of conversation from the main building. At some point they’ll have to leave here, she wants it and she fears it.
“You wanted me to come with you.” She says against his lips.
He pulls back.
“I did.”
“Did?”
“I do.”
This time she lets herself want it. She did even the first time he asked, but now she doesn’t fight it. She lets her mind wander and pictures them by his car, for some reason not hers, at a gas station, drinking stale coffee and watching dusk turn the landscape purple. She imagines calm, the backseat full of books and blankets. She imagines the countryside and New York, them like this there. Her heart is filled up by the wild and beautiful terror of going on an adventure with him, her other half. She could do that, go there, in fact she should. But maybe he shouldn’t, not now, he has things to do. She looks at him, meets his serious eyes, and smiles.
“Well, I would, but you seem to have gotten me a job.”
A smile breaks out in his face.
“You asked me to.”
“I didn’t ask.” She randomly corrects while playing with his hair. “I kinda got you one too.” She adds. “Nothing permanent, just, something requiring fair notice.”
He snorts, shakes his head.
“Luke?”
“Yeah.”
“Figures.”
“It was already sort of yours.” She shrugs.
There’s silence, and since he seems to take it so well, she gets bold.
“Also, I booked you a date to get your GED.”
He gets up on an elbow, and looks at her sternly.
“Rory!”
Under the circumstances his expression doesn’t quite have the desired effect on her, more like the opposite.
“What?” She objects and bites her lip to hold back a giggle. “I could do it in my sleep and I thought-” She puts her hands around his neck pulling his face to hers. “-you could probably do it without even studying.” She kisses him.” Just, show up.” Another kiss, which he responds to, a tad begrudgingly, she thinks, but still enthusiastic. “Or cancel, if you really don’t want to.”
He breaks the kiss to give her an insulted look, and for a second he looks so much like her that she has to wonder how much of her is left in him, how much he’ll get to keep. Then there’s a shift in his expression, a vulnerability that makes her think that maybe it’s not so much about traces left in one another but rather how alike they’ve been this entire time.
“You really think I could do it?” He mumbles.
“Yeah!” She takes a breath to slow down. “Yes.” Nodding solemnly, she tries to dampen her sprouting joy over everything, feels like it’s dangerous, that it needs to be kept in check, and to that purpose she adds: “And you could reschedule it for anywhere, if you need to go.” The last words are quiet, and as they exit her she’s not sure she should let them go.
He puts his forehead to hers and closes his eyes.
“I wanna go with you, if you go with me or not. It’s not even about geography.”
She squints at him.
“And who follows who isn’t really that important.” She says, slowly, unsure if the words are actually hers.
“Either way is fine.” He confirms.
She smiles, unable to stop herself. And now that that’s settled, anything can happen. She kisses him again, this time intent on going all in, to experience this back in her own body, come what may. But it doesn’t come to that. Instead her phone rings, no, his, Jess’s, but they both reach for it. Their hands touch as they grasp it and then he answers, by pushing the call through to speaker.
“Jess?” Mickey’s voice says.
Their eyes meet and there’s more in that moment than it should be able to contain. She grabs the opportunity and answers.
“Yes.” She says, a finger over her lips to silence any sound from Jess.
“They’re coming back!” Mickey sounds relieved and urgent at the same time. “They’re landing late Thursday and should be in Stars Hollow Friday.”
Her chest quivers with held back euphoric laughter, and she bodes up all her self control to steer it.
“Oh-kay.” She starts slowly, to try out her voice, but it sounds good enough, serious, tense from the strength it requires at the moment. “Good. ‘Cause I feel like I might lose it.”
“Rory said the exact same thing.”
“That’s funny.”
“Not in a ha-ha way.”
“I don’t know about that anymore. Bye.” She hangs up and starts convulsing with laughter..
“You’re bad.” Jess purrs.
She shakes her head.
“I must have picked up a thing or two.” She teases.
“Speaking of which, I told your mom I’d pick up CD’s at the house.”
It’s just what she needs to hear, the final thing that welcomes her home, and when she leans in to kiss him it’s to round things off. Not that it’s easy. He holds onto her and a big part of her really wants to stay here until morning, or forever, whatever.
“You need to go deal with that.” He mumbles against her mouth, but without widening any sort of gap between them.
“I need to see her.” She half-confirms. “Get dressed.”
“Me?”
“You’re coming with me.”
“But what about-?”
“I don’t care about that.”
“She probably will.”
“I’m so sick of lying to her.” She just says.
He looks like he overcomes something, then nods. He does get up and back into his clothes, she wriggles into her dress and he gets to zip her up, with some ceremony, he’s slowed down by her skin. His fingers slip against it along the zipper and she shivers, turns and falls into his arms again, kissing him and regretting this whole thinking business.
“We gotta get out of here now.” She gets out just in time and he tears himself from her but keeps her hand in his heading for the door.
They exit the bungalow and all she can think is to put one foot in front of the other. The cogs start turning regarding what to say to her mother only when they round the corner facing the Inn, but she doesn’t get a chance to even finish a thought:
There are two people on the porch, entangled in an embrace and both Rory and Jess stop in their tracks when they see that it’s Lorelai and Luke.
Rory’s jaw drops and there’s an audible exhale from Jess as he sees them. Then it’s like the moment suspends in zero gravity and stretches out the fractions of the seconds it lasts. She feels the air stroke her cheek, Jess’s palm against hers, the physical memory of what happened between them in the suite circulating like an electric current in her body, and the image of her mother and Luke making its way through her retina and gaining meaning. She squeezes Jess’s hand.
Lorelai and Luke let go of each other and replace the embrace with a taken stare, Luke pulls her closer as Rory’s instinctive words meant to alert them to their presence rise through her throat. But before they get a chance to exit her, a blaring yell cuts through the standstill, and it’s Kirk who comes tumbling down the stairs like a naked bat out of hell, passes through Lorelai and Luke and down the stairs headed straight for the bungalow. Luke readies to follow but when both his and Lorelai’s gaze land on Rory and Jess he freezes. Kirk on the other hand keeps running and passes between them, effectively breaking their gripping hands, before running straight into the neighboring field.
The four remaining people stare at each other and it dawns on Rory that she didn’t even glance in the mirror when leaving the room, god only knows how she looks. Not neat, is a qualified guess, but before she has a chance to speak, Luke does.
“I was gonna- I promised Kirk-” He helplessly gestures in the direction of the field. “I’ll be right back.” He finishes and starts jogging after Kirk.
Rory and Jess look after the disappearing figure for as long as they can justify before turning their attention back to the porch and Lorelai who looks at them, head tilted. Rory forces her legs to move. She keeps her gaze locked to her feet as she moves as if steering them with her eyesight. But when she finally looks up and is close enough to interpret facial expressions she sees that Lorelai is searching for something, something in her.
For a second her mother looks at her like she’s a stranger, there’s no getting around that. But then Jess catches up, stopping at her side, Lorelai’s eyes land on him and the strangest thing happens to her face; It softens in recognition and relief.
“Rory and Jess, you’re both here!” She breathes and Rory can’t make sense of it, but is grateful all the same.
Lorelai smiles broadly, eyes wide with exhilaration, and Rory smiles back.
“Sorry it took so long.” She says.
Lorelai gestures.
“It doesn’t matter anymore, did you see-?” She gestures in the direction of the field but interrupts herself and shoots Jess an apologetic look. “Would you excuse us, Jess?”
Rory looks at him and observes a new softness in his face, as he takes a step back.
“Sure, I- I’ll go help Luke.” He too disappears out onto the dark field.
“So,” Lorelai starts, “you ran into Jess?” But she doesn’t wait for an answer before making a demanding gesture. “Where’s my music?”
Rory really is, so sick of lying to her mother. She sighs.
“We didn’t get that far.”
Multiple realisations seem to dawn on Lorelai at the same time, but she leaves herself no time to process them:
“What happened to his eye?”
Rory tilts her head.
“Take a guess.”
Lorelai’s eyes widen and she shakes her head.
“What is it with today, huh?” She says.
“I don’t know,” Rory says, “I’ve seen sicker Saturdays around here.”
Lorelai gapes at her and pointedly gestures at the porch and at her daughter.
“But add that, and whatever’s going on here to that-” she starts.
“Fine, it’s a contender.” Rory admits, lips twitching.
“We really should take inventory.” Lorelai says.
“Make a list.”
“Rank it properly.”
“Seems important.”
They look at each other for a moment, faces split in bright smiles, and Rory’s chest quakes. She’s home.
About a minute later Jess and Luke return with the naked Kirk herded between them, mumbling incoherently to himself, his pale skin covered in reddish bruises.
“We found him in a nettle patch.” Jess explains.
“But the bruises aren’t all from that.” Luke goes on, looking vaguely like a thunder cloud. “Speaking of which, do you have any rubbing alcohol?” He asks Lorelai, who sniggers.
“Inside, but we better get this runaway guest back to his room first, I also need to make a disclaimer note to the brochure clarifying that the retrieval of guests who walk in their sleep aren’t a service we can provide on a regular basis.” She chuckles and asks Luke: “Unless you two wanna come work for me?” She turns and winks at Jess.
“Not for all the tea in China.” Luke mutters.
“I’m sure you can manage on your own anyway,” Jess says. “You are an incredible multitasker after all.”
A flash of suspicion rushes across Lorelai’s face but then she enters the Inn along with Luke and Kirk .
Rory waits until they’re out of sight before she looks at Jess. His eyes, however, are already on her, and for once it’s not hard to guess his thoughts, they’re hers as well: It’s bliss to be able to look at him and know that he’s in there. She looks and looks and the seconds pass and she realises that they’ll end up standing here all night unless they’re careful. She takes a breath and speaks on the exhale.
“What now?”
He smiles.
“Feel like playing some Scrabble?”
She laughs.
“What I feel like is a cigarette.”
“That’s funny,” he says. “I really don’t.”
Some traits stem from the body, others from the soul.
”What I really feel like is being alone with you.” He reaches for her hand and the grip sends vibrations throughout her body.
Her body. It is like she remembers to inhabit, but not entirely. There’s something different, something new, yet familiar.
”Aren’t we already?” She raises her free hand to her chest. ”I mean in here?”
Some traits stem from the soul, others from the body.
He chuckles and raises an eyebrow.
”I was thinking more so we can conduct some weird physical experiments.”
Another fit of laughter surprises her, but she fights it off and gestures dismissively.
”We’ll do ’em tomorrow.”
He nods.
“Should we stay here?”
She shrugs.
“There’s room enough for the both of us.” She squeezes his hand and holds onto it as they walk into the Dragonfly together.
You know, friend? We have talked an awful lot about imagination and affirmation in these last chapters but we also need to remember that each and every one of us live in a very real world with very tangible people in it, and there is that other saying: dig where you stand. We all have a body and a soul, and we need to work with both our physical and spiritual realities to reach balance, to achieve peace, to bridge the feeling of detachment that will spread too much unless we fight it.
In other words: make use of the love you already feel; for your family, your friends, and pets, make that the soil to plant seeds of self love and romantic dreams in. This is where you start. You can not love someone else until you love yourself, but it's also damn near impossible to love yourself without loving someone else. We are people, and people are us, we are one. What you love in others you should love in yourself.
And if you think it sounds too hard, friend, well, then just try again. You will do better with practice. And trust me when I say it will get easier. You are not alone. And I believe you are ready to begin the journey.