A/N: Hey there folks!1!111! So basically I went down a hole and favent written fanfic in like 37424712801283097 years but I recently started watching Gilmore Girls and Jess and Rory stole my entire heart and tore it to shreds and I need an outlet for this angst. So I guess I'm starting a jory oneshot book for whenever I feel like writing stuff about them. So enjoy this thingy woot woot !
Summary: Rory recently broke up with Dean, and she finds none other than Jess fighting Dean in the town square only days later. And she is pissed the hickity heck off! I'm not good at summaries. Read it pls k bye
"Rory, sweetie you gotta hurry up if we wanna go to Luke's before you have school!" Rory hears her mom, Lorelai call from the kitchen. Rory stands in her living room with her backpack in front of her on the couch as she tries to stuff a third book inside.
"I know, just give me a sec!" Rory calls back, letting go of her bag's zipper with a sigh after a fifth unsuccessful attempt at getting her bag closed. She pulls out her copy of Jane Eyre, deciding to carry it with her free hand today. Rory holds the book, zipping her bag closed and swinging it over her shoulder. "Coming!"
"Okay good, hurry up. I have a wedding happening this week at the inn, and Michelle is gonna have my head cut off and put on the bouquet if I'm not there by 8:15." Lorelai says as she walks into the living room, grabbing her keys off of the coffee table. "Chop chop girlie, waffles await!"
"I don't know, I think I'm feeling french toast today." Rory shrugs, following Lorelai out the door. "With powdered sugar. And loads of whipped cream."
"Ooh! Ooh—or, you could ask Luke for a waffle-french-toast-sandwich." Lorelai grins, the two of them walking off their porch and to the car.
"Yeah, like he'd do that."
"Oh, but you see he loves me, remember? I'll just bat my pretty blue eyes at him and we could get whatever we want from him." Lorelai says jokingly, saying the words 'loves me' in a mocking tone. "We can get endless waffle-french-toast-sandwiches. And bottomless cups of coffee."
"You know, I could get used to this whole you dating Luke thing." Rory nods. "It was weird at first, but free food really does win me over."
"Glad to hear it, chippie."
"Not that I'll start calling him pops soon or anything, but.."
"Ah, would you please?" Lorelai responds in a jokingly hopeful tone, the two of them laughing and getting into the car. Lorelai puts the key in the ignition, starting the car and backing out of their driveway.
It had been around a month since Lorelai started dating Luke, and they seemed really happy. Luke scowled significantly less, which was shocking, and Lorelai was grinning like an idiot practically 24 hours a day.
The two of them drive in silence for a moment, Rory staring out the window and watching the trees go by.
"So, Ror.. how are you feeling today? You seem in a better mood than yesterday." Lorelai asks in a more serious tone, glancing at Rory for a moment before looking back to the road.
Three days before, Rory had broken up with her boyfriend of almost a year, Dean. He had become uncomfortably clingy in the past few weeks, especially since Rory had been getting closer with Luke's nephew, Jess. Rory did nothing but tell Dean that her and Jess were just friends, but she was sick of needing to do so. While yes, Rory would have been lying if she said she wasn't attracted to Jess in the slightest—with his messy brown hair that always seemed to need to be cut, his fascinating dark green eyes, defined jawline, and his soft looking lips that always seemed to be turned up in a boyish smirk—Jess could only be described as dreamy; but that wasn't the point. Dean should have trusted her when she said she didn't want to be with Jess, but he couldn't. And Rory didn't want to be in a relationship without trust.
"I'm better. I guess I did need a wallowing period, but I think I'm gonna be fine. I'm confident in my decision to end that relationship." Rory shrugs, speaking confidently. "The only sad part is thinking of what we used to have, but it just changed. We just changed. This is for the better."
"Well, Judy Blume, I am so glad you've come to this conclusion. Really, Rory. I'm proud of you." Lorelai smiles at her before looking back to the road. "Not to mention how ready I am to not hear that boy leave you ten messages a day."
"Oh boy, tell me about it." Rory chuckles.
The two of them reach the town square after a few more turns, Lorelai parking in a spot by the town's public school, across the street from Luke's diner. Rory looks outside to see her best friend, Lane, sitting on the steps of the school, headphones on as she reads a magazine intently.
"Hey mom, you go and get a table. I'm gonna go say hi to Lane, I'll be right there." Rory says, picking up her backpack and opening her car door, Lorelai opening hers too.
"Leaving me alone with my boyfriend? With no supervision? You're the coolest." Lorelai teases as the two of them step out of the car.
"Tell him to have you home by nine!" Rory calls after her mom as she paces backwards towards the diner.
"Lame!" Lorelai calls back, before she turns and crosses the street.
Rory smiles to herself, walking over to the steps where Lane is.
Lane sees her as she approaches, and takes her headphones off, letting them sit around her neck.
"Rory, hey! What're you doing here?" Lane smiles as Rory sits beside her.
"I'm going to Luke's before I have to get to Chilton." Rory replies, Lane nodding. "Why are you here though? School here doesn't start till 8:30, does it?"
"I have zero period on Mondays. Marching band." Lane says with a roll of her eyes. "My mom found out that I've been purposefully late to band several times this month to try out the drums in one of the practice rooms, so she took me a half hour early today."
"That's rough." Rory says with a look of slight disgust, before looking around the courtyard and realizing how many kids there are already there. "But then how come so many kids are already here?"
"Oh, I'm pretty sure Mr. Hall is doing some sort of test review for an exam one of his classes has today." Lane explains. "It's a big class.. there's like two different periods for two different groups of kids."
"Maybe it'd do them some good to hire another teacher to help him out." Rory chuckles.
"Well, that may be how it works at your fancy nancy school, but we're cheap over here at Stars Hollow High." Lane says in a sarcastic tone, raising her brows.
"Well, that's just—" Rory starts, before her attention is grabbed by a yell from a few yards behind her.
"Would you shut the hell up!"
Rory and Lane both immediately look over to the spectacle that they heard, and Rory almost can't believe what she sees.
Jess, the reason for her breakup—right in the middle of sending a punch across the face of Dean—the one she broke up with.
"Oh, no.." Rory mutters, her and Lane immediately standing and rushing over to where the crowd is forming. Rory hears the sound of another punch, and a sound of pain that sounds awfully like Jess' voice.
"Out of my way, please!" Rory says as she pushes her way through the crowd, hearing more punches as she walks. The last person steps aside and she sees them—Dean on the ground as Jess holds the collar of his shirt, sending another punch across his face. Rory can see injuries forming on both of their faces already.
"Take it back!" Jess exclaims.
Dean pushes Jess off of him with all of his strength, Jess stumbling back as Dean stands, the look of rage on his face seeming to grow stronger. Rory sees Dean pull back for another punch, before she intervenes.
"Both of you! Both of you!" Rory exclaims, running up and standing in between them. "What the hell do you think you're doing!?"
"Rory, get out of the way. He could have just hit you." Jess replies as if he didn't hear a word she said, his eyes still furiously fixated on Dean.
"You think I would hit her? Are you kidding?" Dean chuckles mirthlessly.
"You may not have meant to, but hey, she was so far below you—oh, you being seven feet tall and all.. I thought you may have missed her." Jess says dryly, Rory shocked by his ability to remain so witty when he looks like there's steam coming from his ears. "And we all know it takes your brain a little longer to process things than it does for others, so—"
"That is it!" Dean fumes, nudging Rory aside to get to Jess. However, Rory didn't expect this shove in the slightest—and let's be real, she was never very coordinated either—and before she knows it, she finds herself stumbling back onto the ground. She feels a sting in her palm as it scrapes against the cement; the crowd letting out collective hushed gasps and whispers to each other.
Rory looks up at Jess and Dean to see the both of them looking at her, and Jess' expression suddenly loses any bit of dry humor towards the situation that it had left. She sees nothing in those dark eyes of his, nothing but rage.
"Jess, wait, he didn't mean—"
"Are you kidding me right now?" Jess exclaims in outrage, grabbing Dean's collar.
"She was in the way. It's not my fault that she tripped."
"No, you do not get to say that bullshit and get away with it." Jess fumes, holding his shirt so that their faces are inches apart. "I don't care what you do to me. Beat me until I'm unconscious for all I care, but I swear to god, if you lay a finger on her ever again, you will be sorry you were ever born. You got that?"
"Get off of me, man," is Dean's only response, shoving Jess off of him roughly.
Jess grabs Dean's shirt again, pure rage in his face as he sends another punch into Dean's jaw. Rory pushes herself up off the ground, grabbing Jess' arm and holding him back with all her strength.
"Jess,stop!" Rory exclaims, tears forming in her eyes.
"Rory, let go.."
"Jess. Look at me." Rory argues, taking Jess' other shoulder in her hand and turning him so he's facing her. "Walk away."
Jess' eyes link with Rory's, his expression immediately softening. All the rage, the fury, the inhumanity she saw in his face just before; all fades into one look—longing. His eyes meet hers and she sees them tell her he loves her over and over again, not a word needed to be said. And Rory can feel her eyes say the same.
"Walk away." Rory repeats, softer this time.
Jess looks at her with that same glint in his eyes for another moment before he breaks their eye contact, wiping some blood from his nose with his sleeve.
"Come on, you need first aid." Rory says quite flatly, taking his arm and pushing him towards the school. She approaches Lane, who is wearing a shocked expression on her face.
"Lane, can you go run over to Luke's and fill in my mom? Tell her I'll be right there." Rory asks Lane as she passes her by, Lane nodding and briefly putting a sympathetic hand on her shoulder before heading in the other direction.
"Yeah, go tend to your guy.." Dean grumbles from a few feet away, wiping his nose as well.
"Dean, for once in your life, would you please put a sock in it!?" Rory whips her head around to glare at him as she says so, quickly turning back around and continuing to push Jess. "Come on."
Rory and Jess walk up the stairs to the entrance of the school, everyone in the courtyard giving them looks as Rory tightly holds the back of his shirt. Jess doesn't say a word, letting Rory push him around until the reach the school's front doors.
The two of them enter the empty hallway silently, before Jess takes her arm in his hand and removes his shirt from her grasp.
"I'm goin'." He says simply, Rory having no response as the two of them walk into the boy's bathroom.
Rory watches as Jess strolls over to the sink, and she waits for the door to swing closed behind them before she speaks.
"Jess, what on.. Earth, I just.. What?" Rory sputters in complete disbelief and anger, Jess doing nothing, cooly rinsing his hands in the sink with no readable expression on his face. Rory opens her mouth, her breath hitching in her throat as she gathers what to say to him. "What the hell were you thinking? What is wrong with you?"
"It's nothing. Just go." Jess says flatly, still turned towards the mirrors as he rubs clean the cuts on his knuckles.
"Really? That's what you have to say to me?" Rory chuckles mirthfully in disbelief. "And you won't even look at me?"
Jess turns off the faucet, looking up to the ceiling briefly as his jaw clenches before he turns and faces Rory.
"Here. I'm looking at you." Jess states flatly. "What'd you want from me?"
"What do I want?" Rory scoffs. "I want an explanation! I want to know why I break up with my boyfriend, and three days later you're fighting him in the courtyard?"
"He was being an ass." Jess responds irritably. "Now would you stop interrogating me and let me wash off your scrape?"
"He was being an ass? You call that an explanation?" Rory shakes her head, disregarding his request to clean her wound. "My mom was being an ass this morning when she ate the last pop tart, and I didn't beat her till she bled!"
"It wasn't something like that.." Jess replies with slight exasperation in his tone, rolling his eyes briefly. "He was saying stuff. Shitty stuff."
"Then what was it? Enlighten me, Jess! Tell me what it is that he way saying that made him such a total ass that you couldn't keep yourself from trying to break his nose? Because I can think of plenty of thing you could have done instead of—"
"He was saying stuff about you." Jess interrupts. "Saying all this shit about how he dumped you because you wouldn't put out, and how you were a pain, and a bitch, and.. I couldn't take it. I couldn't just stand there and let him say that shit, okay? I told him to can it, but he wouldn't listen. He started saying that I was screwing you." Jess lets go of a frustrated breath, running a hand through his hair, ruffling it. "And I'm sorry, Rory, but I'm not a person who can just sit around while someone says that crap about you. I can't."
Rory says nothing, looking at him in the eyes with that same depth as before.
"Now you've got an explanation, would you let me take care of your hand?" Jess sighs, seemingly paying no attention to the many cuts and already-forming-bruises on his own face.
While Rory can't make herself be mad at him for defending her, she feels a wave of emotions rushing inside of her at the sight of him in pain. She can't be mad at him for defending her, but how could he be so reckless? Rory hates looking at him hurt. She can hardly stand it.
"No, I'm cleaning you up. You don't get to just wipe yourself off with a paper towel and go home." Rory rambles, breaking their eye contact and taking her backpack off her shoulders to look through it for her travel-size first aid kit. She ignores the look she can tell he's giving her as she fishes through her bag, for that all she can do—ignore him. If she looks into his eyes again, she's afraid she might burst into tears.
"Rory.."
"Found it." Rory cuts him off, pulling her small first aid kit out of her bag.
"You have a first aid kit? Just on you?" Jess asks dryly, a small smirk playing on his lips.
"Just because you only carry your copy of Silas Marner and a lighter doesn't mean that's all anyone else has." Rory states, taking out an antiseptic wipe and unwrapping it. "Now don't move your face."
Rory walks up to Jess with the wipe, placing one hand on the side of his neck and starting to wipe away dried blood around a cut on his eyebrow. She can feel Jess staring right at her eyes, but she keeps her gaze glued to the cut as she cleans it.
I'm still mad at him.
She begins to wipe at the second cut on his cheekbone, finishing with the wipe. Rory removes her hand from Jess' neck and hears him softly exhale, his eyes following her as she takes the wipe and throws it in the trash.
"I think you'll only need one band aid, since the cut on your eyebrow isn't really bleeding much anymore." Rory rambles, grabbing a small band aid from her first aid kit and unwrapping it as she steps closer to Jess.
"Rory, you don't need to—"
"And you should probably put ointment on both of them when you're at home.." Rory continues as she places the band aid on Jess' cheek. "I don't have an ointment on me, but I think this'll suffice until—"
"Rory." Jess repeats, gently taking her wrist in his hand.
For the first time since she started tending to him, Rory looks right into Jess' eyes. And there's that look again.
Rory sees as Jess' eyes flicker down to her lips briefly, then back up to her eyes again. She notices as he starts to lean forwards slowly, as if he couldn't help it; as if he was being pulled closer to her by a magnet. And then his eyes are on her lips again.
And then he's kissing her, both his hands sliding onto the sides of her neck and into her hair. He tilts his head to the side to deepen the kiss, his lips fitting perfectly against hers. Rory feels as if she's dropping on a rollercoaster, her heart beating out of her chest as the kiss quickens and intensifies.
But I'm still mad at him.
Then that thought suddenly flashes through Rory's mind: the thought of Jess being punched. The thought of him being pushed to the ground. The thought of the cuts on his face being given to him by a fist, a fist that he was practically begging for.
"No." Rory says suddenly, pushing him away and standing a few feet from him. She looks at him, cuts on his face, a bruise forming around his cheek, and it hurts her. She feels tears start to steam in her eyes, and she knows she can't stop them. "You can't just kiss me, and make everything okay.. It's not okay. You're hurt, and it's your fault that you're hurt!"
"Rory, I—"
"No, you listen." Rory states, the tears running down her cheeks putting a look of unimaginable pain in Jess' eyes. He immediately rushes to her and caresses her face, wiping the tears away, Rory pushing him away again. "You can't just be reckless like this all the time! I can't stand it, I can't stand feeling like you're gonna go out and get yourself hospitalized every damn day! I don't want you starting fights like that, especially not over me. I can fight my own battles."
"Rory, I'm never not going to protect you. You mean too much to me." Jess says with more emotion in his voice now, tears streaming down Rory's face again. "If that's what you want from me, I'm sorry, but I'm too fucking bad in love with you to just sit around when someone is treating you badly. So I'm sorry for hurting you, and I'm sorry if you don't want me involved, but I can't be sorry for loving you."
"Jess, you don't get it!" Rory chuckles mirthlessly, looking to her feet for a moment, tears still in her eyes. "I don't want you getting in these fights because seeing you hurt like this.. it kills me. It's because I love you. I love you so much that it hurts, and the thought of you hurt makes it so much worse."
Jess looks at her with a whirlwind of emotion across his face—shock, happiness, apology, desire—but it all translates to one: love. Unwavering, unapologetic, knocks-the-wind-out-of-you kind of love.
"I love you, Jess." Rory repeats, and Jess doesn't waste another moment before he walks up to her, taking her face in his hands and kissing her with everything in him. Rory kisses back passionately, taking the collar of his shirt in her fists.
Rory feels Jess' hands slide down to her waist before he fully wraps his arms around her, pulling her flush against him. Rory drapes her arms over his shoulders, moving one hand to the back of his head and lightly tugging on the roots of his hair. The kiss deepens, Jess' kisses feeling gentle yet connected, and holding immeasurable amounts of love for her.
The kiss soon slows it's pace, Jess letting Rory go from his embrace and placing his hands gingerly on her waist.
They then pull away from each other's lips, their faces still inches apart. Rory lets a small smile spread across her face, Jess wearing a similar one as he rests his forehead on hers. He then plans another soft kiss on her lips, this one brief; Jess then draping his arms over her waist and looking into her eyes, his face still close enough to Rory's for her to feel his breath against her skin.
"Now would you let me clean off your hand?" Jess says dryly with that smirk of his, Rory chuckling as he says so. "Because I'd like to kiss you again later, but it could be a little hard with your bloody hand in the way."
"Okay, deal." Rory sighs with a smile. Jess smiles too, taking her face in both his hands and planting another kiss on her head before he gets a wipe from Rory's first aid kit. Rory hops up on the sink counter, sitting down with a smile. She feels as if she can't stop smiling.
Jess then steps forwards and gently takes her hand, wiping away bits of blood and dirt from her palm with the wipe. He then takes a large band aid and places it over the wound, taking her hand in both of his and giving it a kiss.
"All better?" Rory asks jokingly, Jess' hand lingering around hers.
"Good as new." Jess smiles, Rory taking the front of his shirt in her hand and kissing him again.
"Not to burst your bubble, but you might be late to your fancy school if you don't stop kissing me." Jess smirks against her lips, Rory's hands staying on the front of his shirt.
"I can have one late day." Rory shrugs, planting a soft kiss on his cheek, and then one on his jawline. "Just a few more minutes."
"Rory Gilmore, late for school?" Jess says dryly, Rory softly kissing his cheek again, dangerously close to his lips. "You sure you don't wanna just resume this later today?"
"Well, sorry Mariano, but I gotta make up for lost time." Rory replies, planting another kiss on his jawline.
"Touché.." Jess smirks, slowly leaning forwards until his lips meet hers again. Rory kisses him deeply, her fingers running through his hair, and then she pulls away.
"Okay, now I can go." Rory smiles as she hops off the counter, pleased with herself.
Jess stands there as Rory slowly walks backwards towards the door, his cheeks flushed and his hair tousled from her kisses. "Wow, okay. I see how it is." He scoffs with a smile.
"See you after school to resume!" Rory smiles before she heads to the door. "And don't forget to use ointment!"
"Yeah, yeah. Back at you and your hand, weirdo." Jess chuckles.
Rory smiles at him once more before turning to leave, but he stops her before she can.
"Oh, and Rory," Jess says, Rory turning back around again.
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
"I love you too." Rory blushes, before adding, "Rocky."
"Hey, does that make you Adrian?"
"God, I hope not. I'm going to school now."