Fic: The Fountainhead (Part Two)
Rating: PG-13, (12)
Disclaimer: I own no classic literature, poetry or prose. Gilmore Girls itself belongs to other people, and the pieces of literature I make reference to belong to the poets and authors named. Quotes taken from The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand. No copyright infringement intended. Go buy the book to bail me out.
Warnings: Mention of whips… that's caught your interest, no?
Spoilers: Bits and pieces up to late series 4ish
AN: Thanks very much to Meredith who betaed the first draft of this piece (these pieces?) Several bits have been added since then, any and all mistakes are my own. I could have honestly quoted whole pages of this book and they would have been relevant to the couple. If you haven't, I really would suggest you go find yourself a copy. It's a real life-journey, and the psychology is very apt especially for today's world climate. Hopefully the quotes I've chosen aren't too long or too obscure.
(Part One: Howl and Other Poems)
It's no use, taking that marvellous thing you have and making a torture rack for yourself out of it. Sell it, Roark. Sell it now. It won't be the same, but you've got enough in you. You've got what they'll pay you for, and pay plenty, if you use it their way. Accept them, Roark. Compromise. Compromise now, because you'll have to later, anyway, only then you'll have gone through things you'll wish you hadn't.
Everything Rory wants to say, she says. And she says it with the elegance and poise that has been taught to her by Dante, Rand, Tolstoy, Austen and so many others that she would find it hard to list them all these days. She grew up surrounded by people who loved to talk to her and every word she spoke received some form of attention and encouragement. She thinks that's why she's finding Yale so hard - she's just one of a crowd here, speaking for no one but her self and surrounded by people who love to talk. He was the only one she has ever been with and not been compelled to talk continuously. With him, silence could be golden.
She first reads The Fountainhead, aged 10, with a dictionary on one side and a book on architecture on the other. She was sure before she'd passed the introduction that she wants to read this book again when she's old enough not to need the dictionary, because the story is on the edge of taking her breath away and reaching for a word just keeps her from that edge. She falls in love with this strange character, so detached in his own way and yet more passionate than she can imagine anyone in real life being. She will fall in love with a lot of characters from a lot of books over the years, but somehow Howard Roark is the only one that sticks.
She sees Roark in him the day they meet, that same passion hidden behind detachment. Sees the look in his eyes when he hands back Howl - somehow equal parts love and fear. She doesn't understand it, that look, but she reads Howl again, slowly, and absorbs every line of handwriting added to the text, looking at Ginsberg's world through completely new eyes. She wants him to look on Roark with those eyes, see himself in that character the way she sees him. She rings him to hear Roark's voice on the phone, and laughs at herself when he tells her he doesn't understand.
She'd never seen anything like the terror in his eyes right now, stood beside the wreckage of her car. He doesn't pause in his pacing long enough for her to try and place the emotion or explain it in any way. His hands were shaking but his cigarette was unlit behind his ear. He paused only long enough to meet her eyes and ask how she was - again. She told him she was fine - again, and rolled her eyes a little. Really the adrenaline was rushing far too fast to say anything for sure. She's aching all over, but maybe that's just shock.
The sirens started up in the distance and he jumped as if he'd been shot, suddenly standing very still, as if he could fade into the background. She'd never seen anyone look as scared as he did right then, and she knew this was more than just fear of Lorelai or Luke or Dean. (They're here now - she had whispered - You don't have to stay, I'm alright. He had only met her eyes, and like so many words with him these were unspoken. His eyes said 'Thank you' for him.) He was gone before the flashing lights reached the brow of the hill and turned the corner.
The paramedics had been angry that anyone had left the crash without being looked at, and Rory was suddenly aware that she hadn't asked Jess how he was. There would be time later, she assured herself. She'd drag the boy down to the hospital herself if she needed. There was something about the look in his eyes that had said he couldn't have gotten into the ambulance even if he had needed medical attention. She wanted to know the source of that terror, wondered if he would tell her if she asked about it. The next day Jess was gone and she didn't know why, but she was more scared for him than ever.
"The soul, Peter, is that which can't be ruled. It must be broken. Drive a wedge in, get your fingers on it - and the man is yours. You won't need a whip - he'll bring it to you and ask to be whipped." Rory stared into the distance, not seeing Sookie stutter and giggle, or Jackson blush, not aware of Dean at her side. Hearing Rand's words in her head and wondering when he'd driven that wedge into her soul, that she might throw herself into his arms at the sight of him. That she might offer him the whip without any hesitation.
Overt is the word for what they're being, and he's either rubbing it in (which seems stupid because that means he's made the assumption that she cares) or he really, really wants to get himself arrested for public indecency. If he tries to get any closer to her, they're going to have to start taking off clothes. Rory glances over at his hand in her back pocket and wonders what would happen if she drew Taylor's attention to them. She glances again, and wonders when she started caring.
Rory had never expected Lorelai's approval on 'The Jess Matter'. Maybe some small part of her was gleefully celebrating at the thought - it was so hard to rebel against someone who would accept everything you did. But the sharp-edged hatred that came out of her mother's mouth was something completely new to her. Were the two really so far separated that they would never see eye-to-eye? She was too afraid of the answer to ask, but she had a sneaking suspicion that it's their similarities, not their differences that create this enmity. The past and the future that describes them both.
It seems strange at this point to be distrustful. There's been so much that's happened in the last year that she can barely get her mind around what they're doing together, let alone what they're supposed to be doing now. He speaks so rarely in company and so passionately when they're alone - she's made a point of trusting his words because he uses them so scarcely. As if treating every one with near-religious respect. Yet she can't help but think, later, that the thought of Jess throwing a ball with 'a buddy'… even the football seems out of place in the story. (I don't want to talk to anyone else, I don't like anybody else.) She hates to doubt him, but this is more than doubt. This is knowing a lie when it's staring you in the face.
She picks up the Fountainhead again later, after he's left for a second time. She doesn't get very far into it, because she's realising how easily Roark destroys the lives of those around him, and hating him starts to come easily. She never wanted to hate him… hate either of them, so she put it to one side. Later - when he's told her he loves her - she wonders if it might be worth hating him to stop her self from loving him so much. She picks up the book again, and learns how to deal. Later still, she'll pick up his book, and it will teach her how he learnt to deal. It will make her cry.
She turns around, her key already in the front door, as a motorbike roars past her in the street. It's not anyone she knows, but motorcycles have meant her father to her forever, and will continue to despite the Volvo and anything else that might have happened. They weren't exactly commonplace in Star's Hollow, and she was still new enough to the City that every one was a treat. She thought about her Mom, and the long-laughed over reaction to Dean. (Dark hair, romantic eyes, looks a little dangerous? Tattoos are good too!) Only one man in her life that fitted that description, and it wasn't Dean. She'll keep looking out for motorcycles.
No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane or a building - that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users.