Notes: Title from the song I Go Crazy by Orla Gartland, which is iconic, by the way.
Summary: Rory and Paris (finally) get together. Set in their senior year at Yale, slight AU, where Doyle broke up with Paris at some point and Rory didn't get back with Logan after she found out about all the girls he slept with during Thanksgiving (because she actually had standards- and another blonde in her life).
Rory wants. She wants and it's strange and scary but not necessarily new. She'd like to think it's at least a little bit new, at least where the subject of her desire is concerned, but she knows that that isn't quite right. She's wanted Paris for a long time, since Chilton even, but she always chalked those odd feelings she had for the blonde up to something else, anything but the truth. First she paid too much attention to Paris because she'd never been so thoroughly disliked before, much less before she'd even had a chance to make a first impression, and simply because she just existed. Then she spent too much time thinking about Paris because they were friends, or quasi-friends- which is basically the same thing where Paris is concerned, and she told herself it was normal to think about your friends a lot and if seventeen year old Rory spent some of that thinking time considering how nice it would be to kiss Paris, wondering if she kissed the same way she argued- intensely and with the goal to make the other person forget everything they were thinking, then it was just a coincidence that Rory didn't really dwell on. And then, at Yale, they were living together and Rory found it nearly impossible to escape her thoughts of Paris when they shared a bedroom.
Now, though, there were not flimsy excuses to hide behind, though briefly considers blaming it on being alone and recently cheated on. She won't, though, because Paris deserves better than that- because Rory deserves better than that. This thing with Paris, it's been a long time coming, and Rory wasn't going to sit around making pro-con lists and watching Paris longingly, not with seven years of feelings pent up and bubbling beneath her skin.
It's nearly five and Rory was just finishing up ordering the last of her patented assortment of take-out, when she realizes that she had absolutely no idea if her feelings were mutual at all. Here she was ordering take-out and rummaging around for their well-loved copy of The Power of Myth, all set to try to woo Paris, and she hadn't the faintest idea if her feelings were returned.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Before she got too far into berating herself, she heard the sound of the middle deadbolt, arguably the squeakiest lock in all of existence, being unlocked and she had a choice to make: Follow through on her plan to tell Paris how she felt about her or play off the obscene amounts of food and Bill Moyers as another pitiful night of wallowing. There really wasn't much of a choice to make here, so continued to arrange the first half of the take-out, which had arrived only a few minutes before Paris had, and make sure that the VHS was in the player and rewound completely. And, if it was a monstrous disaster, there was always the option of playing it off as being a product of her loneliness or something to that effect, because, God knows, she wasn't ever very good with being alone.
The door was finally completely unlocked and Paris was on her way in, "So, how was the thing?" She wanted to sound like she cared about the Operation Finish-Line activity that Paris had gone to, she did care, at least a bit, but she couldn't for the life of her remember what she'd even gone to, all of these workshops and internships and interviews just blended together after a while, honestly.
"The lecture on herbal medicine was shit. Absolute horseshit, I can't believe that people, real Ivy League graduates, believe that consuming some plants and doing sunrise yoga is an actual, legitimate, replacement for modern medicine and treatment. Just be glad you were too caught up in your wallowing to come along." She moved around the room putting her stuff away while she ranted, talking more at Rory than to her, the same way she does whenever she meets someone she deems moronic and needs to get anything that isn't socially acceptable to say to their face out of her system, though that hasn't stopped her in the past from doing the same rant at the person she finds idiotic.
She waited until the whirlwind that was Paris Geller was close enough and then she reached out, grabbed her wrist, and then pulled her down onto the couch with her, making the two of them a heap of limbs on the couch. "I wasn't mopping, and I think you got more out of it than I could've hoped to, being a pre-med major and everything."
"Not that there was anything medical about it." Paris sighed, "but it would've been more tolerable with you there." Rory's heart clenched at that, because, no, she wasn't sure about her feelings being mutual, but maybe, just maybe, it would go over alright.
"I like spending time with you too, Par."
Paris sat up and looked down at Rory, well as best she could with Rory laying against the arm of the couch with her legs splayed across Paris's lap, "That is overly sentimental and not at all what I said, Gilmore."
"Yeah, but it's what you meant." Rory said it in that overly fond way of hers and Paris scoffed and shook her head, but sagged back into the Rory-Paris heap on the couch.
"Whatever. So, food?"
"Yes, food, and The Power of Myth."
"The Power of Myth?" Paris was looking at her sideways and a little oddly and Rory wasn't sure what it meant, exactly, but it gave her butterflies nonetheless.
"Yes, that's what I said."
"Okay." That little sideways look is still lingering, and Rory is smiling a little, when she grabs the remote and presses play.
They're maybe ten, fifteen, minutes into the tape and about halfway into a carton of sesame chicken when Rory decides to hell with wooing, she's got to tell Paris how she feels now or she'll quite possibly explode. "Paris, I need to tell you something."
"You're terminally ill."
"What, no. Why you you assume that? What would even give you that impression? Christ."
"Well I see no other reason for you to sound so serious when there is Bill Moyers and copious amounts of take-out." Paris had her serious face and strange sidelong look and Rory was stressed.
And when she's stressed she babbles. Fast. "IreallylikeyouandIdon'tknowhowtotellyouthisandit'snotjustbecausebothofusaren'tseeinganyonebut-"
"Rory, breathe." Rory paused, took a deep breath, "now continue but at a rate that people other than your mother can understand." That made her laugh a little, which helped her regain a little semblance of composure.
"I really like you and-"
"I know."
"What? What do you mean you know?"
"It's kind of obvious: the way you do things with me even though you hate them, the fact that you check the labels of every single food for dairy, even the ones I'm not going to eat, the way you get out another blanket for me on nights when it'll be chilly out because you know I get cold easily and our air conditioning is shit, and the way you look at me like I hung the moon is also a pretty big give away." Rory was stunned, absolutely stunned. How could Paris know something she'd only recently come to terms with? And how could she sound so calm and clinical about it? Well, Rory did have to consider that Paris was either so emotional she's liable to blow a gasket or cold and detached, but why did the latter apply to this particular situation? Would it be worse if it had been then other?
"So, uh, if you know then why didn't you ever say anything?" Rory wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know the answer, honestly.
"Because I liked the current situation and I was sure you'd lose interest like everyone else inevitably does, so not saying anything seemed easier. But now that you've pulled out all the stops," she gestured to the take-out and the program that was still playing, "you obviously want something to come from it. So what, sex? A casual relationship? Some college age sexual experimentation?" Paris was still clinical and detached and her whole body had gone stiff under Rory sometime while she was talking.
"No, that's not what I want. I want to date you, hold your hand, kiss you, go on dates, take you to meet my family-"
"I've met your family." Still detached, still stiff.
"I want to take you to meet my family and say 'this is Paris, my girlfriend,' and I want to spend my life, at least for the foreseeable future, with you in a committed relationship." Paris is a little less stiff but silent.
The silence dragged on with nothing but the tape to fill the silence, until, finally, Paris spoke, "You really want that? With me? Are you sure?"
"Absolutely." Paris was completely relaxed now.
"Thank God," and then Paris was leaning in and then they were kissing and god it was better than Rory could've possibly imagined. Paris's lips were soft, her hair was soft, everything about her was soft- but not that kiss. The kiss was rough and demanding and completely full of the fire that Paris brings to every aspect of everything she does, there was definitely nothing cold or detached about this kiss, and Rory was loving every second of it.
They kissed, hands migrating to hair and hips and their sitting arrangement became a little harder to feel comfortable in, Rory and Paris mostly side by side but with Rory's lower body draped over Paris's lap. They broke the kiss, gasping for air, and Paris flipped them so that Rory was laying back against the couch and Paris was straddling her lap. There was a large grin on Paris's face as she leaned down to kiss her again.
The second kiss was better, and more heated, than the last, and, somehow, the sound of Bill Moyers and the smell of Chinese and the feel of Paris's hips beneath her fingertips were making it better and Rory was getting a little lightheaded with the feeling of it.
"So this is what you want?" Paris asked, quiet, uncertain, and vulnerable, the side of Paris that Rory loved but very rarely got to see, the side that reminds her that Paris is human too, when they finally came up for air, foreheads still pressed together and breathing each other's air.
"Yes. This and what comes after this, though maybe not tonight if you don't want to, and what comes in the morning after that and every morning after that for as long as you can stand me."
"Good. Just making sure." Paris's face was a little closer to hers again and she thought that she was going to kiss her again, but she didn't, just nudged her nose against Rory's as she drew more of their shared breath in to speak. "So, about the whole what comes after thing, you want to do that?"
"Only if you want to. We don't have to have sex tonight or tomorrow or ever, if you want, I don't care. It isn't really what I care about, I care about this, you, us."
"Oh, thank God." Then they were kissing again, softer this time, but somehow more than the previous two kisses. "I love you."
She couldn't believe that Paris said that. Of course she was in love with Paris, but she didn't know that her feelings were even close to mutual, let alone this staggeringly close to exactly how she was feeling, "I love you too." Her voice was almost too quiet for her to hear it but she's fairly certain that Paris can hear it over The Power of Myth anyway.
The morning found them tangled on the couch, Paris on her side with her back pressed against the back of the couch and Rory tucked up with her back against Paris's chest, legs tangled together and one small scootch from falling onto the hard tile floor. The tv was still on, screen blue with a little square stop signal in the corner, and the take-out boxes were on the coffee table right where they left them last night. Rory woke up feeling better than she ever had in her life.
"Morning," and Paris was laying small kisses on the back of her neck and Rory took past her previous sentiments- this was the best she'd ever felt in her life.
"Mm, morning."
Paris stopped kissing her neck, "So, about last night," and there it is. Rory knew it was going to come, but she was dreading the looming Paris freak out. "Did you really mean that you wanted to have a relationship with me even if it doesn't include sex?"
What? Rory expected are you sure you want me crazy Paris Geller? Or This isn't some elaborate scheme to throw me off of Operation Finish Line is it because I am absolutely not backing down, graduation is looming, Gilmore! But instead this? Of course Rory meant it; she wanted Paris and sex would just be an added, but not necessary, bonus. "Of course I meant it, Paris. Why wouldn't I?"
"Because people expect it in a relationship." Paris sat up now, or as well as she could with Rory still laying on the couch, "I just don't really like sex." Rory sat up now too and they rearranged themselves to be sitting side by side.
"You don't have to like sex. That's okay and I'm okay with not having sex, Paris." She looped her arms around Paris's shoulders in a side hug.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Paris turned to face her and kissed her, soft and sweet and perfectly.
"You know that's why Doyle broke up with me." Her quiet voice broke the silence between them that had began after they broke their kiss and rest their foreheads together.
"What a dick."
"Yeah, he is." Paris was looking away from her now, as if she didn't really agree and felt ashamed about her asexuality.
"Paris," She put a hand to her cheek and turned her head toward her so Rory could look her in the eye while she spoke, "you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of and anyone who says otherwise can take it up with me."
"Like you could fight anyone, Gilmore." Paris had a little smile on her face when she said it and Rory knew that her message had gotten across, at least for now. Rory knew it would come up again, Paris's insecurities tended to rear their ugly heads when they least expected it and often over and over again.
But Rory was pretty sure they could handle it, together.