A/N—Sorry, I know I've been disloyal. I should be updating And I Kind of Like You Driving Me Crazy like a madwoman, but this idea popped into my head and won't leave. Every chapter is based off of a song whose title is, ironically enough, the chapter title. It takes place shortly after 'Let Me Hear Your Balalaikas Ringing Out'. Rory is living with Logan. That's all you get for now. Enjoy!
Story Title: Falling Away With You
Chapter Title: My Favorite Mistake
Summary: Even though he pervaded her dreams like the smell of expensive coffee and Sunday mornings. On the covers of all of her books, the smells from the doorways of everywhere she went. He was like her omnipresent reminder of how poorly she had progressed. Literati.
I woke up and called this morning
The tone of your voice was a warning
That you don't care for me anymore.
Rory rolled over the 750 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and effectively rolled her mind out of the most fabulous dream.
But she wouldn't say what it was out loud. Not even to Lane.
Especially not to Lorelai or Paris.
Least of all Logan.
She saw the cold space where his body had never been in the unwrinkled half of the duvet cover. When the focus in her eyes adjusted, she also noted that it was 5:30 AM, and the sun was streaming through the naked window.
I made up the bed we sleep in
I looked at the clock when you creep in
6 AM and I'm alone.
She ran a hand over the duvet cover she had just noted. She had bought it weeks ago. It was the most delicate light blue color. She had spent weeks looking for it, dragging around her beloved Birkin Bag and flicking her bangs out of her face.
That was the other thing. This pinched, small, Emily Gilmore face that she had gotten. Even when she moved in with them that hadn't been happening.
It was him. He decimated her distinctiveness. He turned her into some DAR, tea serving, 'Oh that's fine Mrs. Huntzberger, you can walk all over me' kind of girl that she hated with every fiber she contained.
Rory didn't even have the slightest comprehension what a duvet cover had been. She hated when people would talk about their new, $400, cloud soft duvet cover. Then she thought, on some inundation of abject insanity, that she simply had to have one in a delicate light blue color. The impulse was unavoidable and total. Now as she looked at it, with the sleep still in her head and high on her dreams, she thought it was foolish.
'If he doesn't wander in here and stumble around the room before crashing on top of the bed with his shoes still on by 6, I'll call and ask him where he's been all fucking night,' she thought as she pulled aside the blankets and scratched her ankle distractedly.
He had been there. He carried a book bag, which made her laugh cynically. He hadn't carried a book in his life up to that point that had anything to do with academics. There it was though.
Then she went and let Logan chase him away, cursing her for turning into the thing she and he both knew she hated. She hated him for bringing that into reality for her. She wanted to run away from it, hide under her covers and wait for the insanity to pass.
Then he had remembered her birthday and she swooned all over again.
Then there was Logan, who she couldn't seem to shake off, even when he did stray.
Did you know when you go it's the perfect ending
To the bad day, I was just beginning?
When you go all I know is
You're my favorite mistake
She heard the door click open and Logan wandered in, bedraggled and smelling of expensive liquor, cheap perfume, and cigar smoke.
It was like being Emily Gilmore from time to time. Except she doubted her grandfather wandered in at the crack of dawn smelling like had been gallivanting around his town of choice with Colin and Finn. She didn't think so anyway, but sometimes life would surprise you.
"Hey Ace," he said sloppily, grinning like a drunken sailor on leave, trying to focus on the state of her face and the hour of the day.
"Where've you been?" she asked solemnly.
"Ah, just out with a few people. No need to worry. How was your night?" he asked as he sat down on the edge of the bed and undid his shoes.
"It ended when the clock hit AM and I went to sleep. Unlike you, my nights have a tendency to end before the sun rises," she spat quietly, staring at the ceiling with her hands folded on her stomach.
"Hey, relax. I was just out with my friends, you were invited, remember?" he said, his head lolling as he undid his shirt and threw it aside.
"What in all of our time together has lead you to believe that I enjoy playing second fiddle to your binge drinking and bad attitude?" she wondered, still refusing to look at him. She was having too fabulous of a time imagining him in the ceiling. He could feel the tension if he couldn't see it really, anyway.
"What's your problem tonight?" he asked, looking at her. She didn't turn still.
"In case you've failed to notice, it's not night, Logan, it's the fucking morning!" she said, throwing aside the covers and shutting herself in the bathroom.
"Rory!" he called after her, but not moving. When she didn't say anything, he fell on top of the duvet cover and passed out.
'You've got to cut him loose. This isn't right. He shouldn't be so passive. And he shouldn't smell like that Jennifer Lopez perfume. What the hell is that?' Rory wondered while she brushed her teeth and washed her face, ready to face the morning just for the sake of putting distance between her and Logan.
'Blonde, moronic, stupid, cheating, alcoholic,' she thought. The cold water on her face didn't refresh her. It made her more livid. Here she was, up and moving around, and he was out cold on her duvet cover.
He was too filthy to lie on that blue. She remembered-it was delicate.
Logan was not delicate. Logan was only delicate when it came to the truth, and he was only delicate about dancing around it.
Then she wanted to scream when his phone rang in the next room. She ran out and picked it up, seeing him not even stir.
Now you're friends are sorry for me
They watch you pretend to adore me
But I'm no fool to this game
"Hello?" she answered, too busy trying to catch it before Logan regained lucidity to read the readout.
"'Ello love," Finn said, drunkenly surprised. "Is Logan there by any chance? And if not, do you mind if I am?" he slurred.
Rory suppressed a smile. Even if she hated Logan, she really did love Finn.
"Sorry, he's currently passed out. What do you want me to tell him?"
"Tell him that I'm sorry if Lovely Amy somehow mistakenly didn't get out of the car when we drove by her building as is now back with me. He had a sweet tooth for her tonight." Rory went silent and stony, her mouth a small line of fury. Belligerent. Furious.
"I'll give him the message," she managed to push out before hanging up the phone and throwing it at his head, with once-in-a-blue-moon precision.
Now here comes your secret lover
She'll be unlike any other
Until your guilt goes up in flames
"Asshole!" she screeched when the impact roused Logan angrily.
"What the fuck was that? Rory!" he yelled groggily, but confusion fluttering past his pupils as she just glared at him.
"I am so stupid," she said, going to the closet and hauling out her suitcase.
"What is your problem? Where do you think you're going?" he asked, now sitting up and holding his head in his hands. "Fuck, I need an aspirin." Rory looked at him with a look, that, had he seen it, came off as nothing but, dare me?
She went into the bathroom and retrieved the jumbo-sized bottle, almost gone, and threw it at him again, hitting on the joint of his wrist.
"Okay, you need to explain to me what it is you think you're doing," he said, squinting while he looked at her. He looked nothing short of stupid and with the pale morning light still flowing in, Rory saw it clearly. She stood and looked at him while she was shoving things in her suitcase.
"Know the song Maggie May?" she wondered, hand on hip, tone still threatening. Like if he hadn't been listening to Rod Stewart he'd be in trouble.
"No," he said incredulously.
"'The morning sun when it's in your face really shows your age'," she quoted, then turned around to dump the rest of her clothes into the suitcase and gather the refugees from her purse, her phone charger.
"Excuse me?" he said, realizing there might be a reason to be offended.
"Looking at you right now makes me think more and more that you're an eight year old. And I'm sick of it."
"Ace, listen to me-," he started.
"Who's Amy, huh? Who the fuck is 'Lovely Amy'? Do we need to get your 'sweet tooth for Lovely Amy' checked out? Guess we don't have to, Finn took her home anyway," she asked, all the while increasing in volume, moving faster around the room while she packed for the added effect.
"Woah woah woah," he said, holding his hands up, trying to get her to back down. "Let's just talk about this, Ace," he said quietly.
"Logan? Who exactly is 'Ace'? Last time I checked my name was Lorelai and I go by Rory. Sometimes 'hon', 'Ror' if the situation permits, but never 'Ace'," she almost yelled, punctuating each word by throwing something into her bag.
"I've always called you Ace, Rory," Logan said coldly. "What's going on?"
Did you know when you go it's the perfect ending
To the bad day I've gotten used to spending?
When you go all I know is
You're my favorite mistake
You're my favorite mistake
"I will not wait around for you to come home until 6 in the morning every single solitary night, Logan. I won't answer your phone to listen to your drunken friends talk about the girl you had been hitting on all night. I refuse to hear one more time about how you cheated on me because you're eight-year-old brain makes all kinds of blatant misconceptions. I won't," she said, standing before the door. The finality was silent. An old, Western, Mexican Standoff.
Logan twitched a finger. "You've got to be kidding me."
"Actually, I'm not," Rory said, proverbially placing her hand on her pistol.
Logan swallowed hard and tried to match her move, but its boldness lost in its actual essence of follow the leader. "Doesn't this seem a little sudden?"
"Not at all," she assured him, removing it from the holster. It was her only way out, to get to the shot before he could. To make him nervous. To intimidate him into a corner and almost literally make him cry for his mommy.
"Last night, yesterday morning. Actually, almost every other day than today you have exhibited none of this hostility. What's the deal? I need some answers." He cracked his neck and reached for his gun, trying to be nonchalant but failing and looking cocky. She laughed at his verbal attempts to trump her hand.
But only in her mental, western land.
A land without duvet covers and Birkin bags.
"You need answers? You have got to be kidding me. You need answers?" Her voice hit an unnatural octave. "I'm the one that lays in bed alone every night, takes your calls when you're passed out drunk-even when the subject matter is less than my business-, and has to hear about most of your exploits second hand because you pull this, 'it's a secret society, I can't say anything' or 'don't worry, I'll call you if anything happens' attitude and I'm supposed to wait at home like good little wifey?" She couldn't believe it had all slipped out like that. She made her move and fumbled slightly, opening the gateway to his catching up.
But she was confident that he didn't know any better than to fail.
"Can we talk about this after I've had a couple hours of sleep? Seriously Rory, I'm not awake enough to deal with this right now." He tripped.
"Tough."
"Rory!" he demanded.
"Bye."
Bang.
Maybe nothing lasts forever
Even when you stay together
I don't need forever after
It's your laughter
Won't let me go so I'm holding on this way
She closed the door and leaned against it, silent as she could be, hearing him fall back against the bed and make a phone call.
"Finn, it's Logan. What the hell did you say to Rory?" she heard him say, though it was muffled.
"Fuck." She smiled. Like shooting fish in a bucket.
She took out her phone, shuffling through her phone numbers. She had deleted it so long ago. In this hopeless attempt to forget. Even though he pervaded her dreams like the smell of expensive coffee and Sunday mornings. Even though he was everywhere she went. On the covers of all of her books, the smells from the doorways of everywhere she went. He was like her omnipresent reminder of how poorly she had progressed.
It was the way that Logan had blonde hair and blue eyes and was just a little too tall and that he had the friends she hated to love. He was like the negative of him.
She finally found a number that might reach the itch that she had for so long.
Well did you know?
Could you tell
You were the only one
That I ever loved?
When everything's so wrong
"Luke's."
"Luke, I've got a question. But you can't mention it to my mom."
Did you see me walking by
Did it ever make you cry?
You're my favorite mistake
You're my favorite mistake
You're my favorite mistake.