A/N: My contribution for Day 22 of A Gilmore Christmas is a Literati oneshot. Sending a big ‘ol HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the lovely Emma, @alspancakeworld. Thanks for organizing this event and for allowing me to participate! xx (Check out all the other cool stuff in the link above.)
(A03) (FFnet)
Summary: It’s late, close to Christmas, and Rory and Jess find themselves alone strolling through a decor-decked Stars Hollow to share a moment where past and present feelings collide. (Post-AYITL but no pregnancy) (Holiday Angst and Feels)
Word count: 3.1k
It’s my first attempt at Literati fic. Happy reading! :)
xx Ashlee Bree
When All Sense Breaks Loose
This one will wreck him. Oh, yeah. This one promises calamity.
_
Jess hears it in the cracking first. He feels it in the thawing of his bones the moment he reaches out to catch the edge of a snowflake with his thumb and swipes it off her cheek, his thoughts splitting into chaos because ‘over…long over’ is what they’re supposed to be. And they were. They are.
But then she steps close enough to shoulder-bump him, her head tilted, her eyes shining up at him with a mixture of alcohol, gaiety, and anticipation as they head back to the house so they can drink coffee and gorge on some of Sookie’s gourmet sugar cookies; and soon, all of those unspoken words he swore he’d deleted years ago when they were still a couple of twenty-something kids up to their waists in missed chances, spill out into the margins of his mind in ink too permanent to miss. The words fall out all tangled together like carefully embedded prose to expose dusty questions that had apparently never settled like he’d intended.
(Or more like he’d damn-well hoped.)
_
He smells it in the crispness of the air second.
Clumsy as ever, Rory folds her fingers into the crook of his elbow in a clinging effort to keep herself steady after her foot slides backward on a slippery patch of sidewalk near Miss Patty’s dance studio. Her hands curl into the lapels of his jacket. They fly around his neck within seconds next, desperate for somewhere soft and sturdy to land, and his lungs betray him with one measly hitch of breath. Backstabbing bastard lungs, they are, too. Freezing at her touch like it’s the first time. Sending fresh trembles along his shoulders, then down the columns of his spine.
“This feels like a scene straight out of While You Were Sleeping,” she laughs.
Her tone’s full of self-mockery and ridicule, but she doesn’t seem bothered by her impromptu ice skating or her near-toppling into his arms at all, which Jess finds curious.
“But as long as you don’t rip your pants up the ass,” she continues, “we should be okay the rest of the way. At least—well, would you say you’re more Blades of Glory or Wayne Gretzky?”
“Charlie Conway, probably.” When she stares at him blankly, he flicks her side with his index finger and says, “From the Mighty Ducks?”
“Oooh, lucky me! I mean, had you said Gordon Bombay, I’m afraid I’d have to contend with your weak and wobbling hockey knees,” Rory says in a way that denotes both her relief and her amusement.
“In that case, we’d both be screwed.”
“Right, so no ripped jeans or ice-kissed butts for you. Got it, mister.” Just to be safe, however, she links her arm through his anyway. She leans against him for warmth or for support (or for who the hell knows what else), as they recommence their stroll through Stars Hollow.
They somehow manage to take the long and slow route home. She doesn’t seem to mind, though, so why should he? And even though Jess knows he shouldn’t, he breathes in the lavender soap of her skin and allows himself to remember how well she’s always fit against his side. How right she’s always felt. Like the home he’d never had with Liz…or with any other woman he’s dated since Rory.
He thinks of sleigh rides, of a stolen teenage kiss or two behind Gypsy’s Auto Repair; he thinks of quiet nights in, of cuddling and movie bingeing, of Indian chicken curry which stunk up the whole of his uncle’s apartment, of talking Faulkner, Hemingway, and Bukowski with little to no regard for time. He remembers how certain of her, and of them, he’d once been.
I know you. I know you better than anyone.
The reflection hurts. It chafes him worse than frostbite to know he’ll probably always be the one who understands her best.
But what does it matter? What good does it do to reflect on those chapped patches of his past? How does it help to contemplate his screwed-up life? Why wonder and wish? Why—why in hell should he waste any more time on unfulfilling idioms like ‘if?’
(Except he does.)
DAY 22 GIFT !!
Ashlee Bree you spoil me. Best Bday gift ever!! @austennerdita2533 “He knew with a glance that this girl was sentences and paragraphs. He knew she was pages and chapters and books which were yet to be understood in some overarching theme he wouldn’t be able name. He knew she was a still-developing story he’d need to read through to the conclusion. I knew. I knew the first time I saw you.“
