Title- Love-Hate Relationship
Author- Victoria
Rating- PG-13 (for language)
Summary- Jess Mariano hates Rory Gilmore. He hates her more every time he sees her. Why? That's easy to explain... Oneshot from Season 2, definitely before The Bracebridge Dinner.
Author's Note- Okay, I'm gonna be honest, Gilmore Girls is an extremely recent obsession of mine. And for that I fully blame the intense hotness of Milo Ventimiglia. Anyway, I have NOT seen much of the show, but I've seen enough that I got inspired for a fic, and I'm just not going to be able to sleep tonight without writing some Literati stuff. So this is it. Hopefully it will not be my last GG fic, but I'm totally dedicated to Heroes, so don't expect them often. This is short, but it's written with love (and a great deal of Milo-induced lust).
The first time I saw her, I admit it, I was intrigued. There was no denying that she was pretty, maybe even beautiful in a dainty, not-quite-a-woman-yet way. And she was well-read. I couldn't believe it. I thought all pretty girls ever had in their heads were pom-poms and sparkles, or else some serious golddigger designs.
And of course I was promptly shut down the instant we started talking. With her insistence that dinner with her weird-ass mother and friends would be "fun," I knew immediately that she was the ultimate goody-two-shoes. And that made it official: Lorelai Gilmore the Second was out of my league. She was The Girl Next Door epitomized. And, well, girls like that simply didn't look at guys like me that way. I might hook up with some biker chick with a dragon tattoo, but somebody like Rory?
I resigned myself to the idea that it just wasn't going to happen.
But I still took her copy of Howl.
--
When I returned it... now that was when I really started to hate her. The confused look in her beautiful blue eyes as she realized I'd read the book before was... well, it was the start of something, and I damn well knew it.
But you want to know the truth? Looking back, I can tell you the exact moment that I fell for her. When she called me "Dodger," I started to realize that despite her sweet-and-innocent homespun ways, Rory Gilmore actually seemed to... I don't know. I don't want to say she knew where I was coming from, because how could she? Maybe empathy is the word for it, I don't know. It was just like she understood without really understanding. And somehow, it woke up something in me that I thought was long dead. She'd wormed her way into my heart with pathetic ease, despite all my walls to keep people out.
I realized as I walked away that Rory was dangerous. Despite only having known her a few days, she was already occupying my thoughts almost constantly. She could break me down too easily.
And I hated her for that.
--
For awhile, I just watched her from afar. Yeah, it was pretty sad; I felt like my life had turned into a bad pop song. But honestly, it was sort of better to be mad at Rory for the way she affected me than being mad at Luke or whoever for other stuff. Deep down, I wasn't particularly interested in putting up with anybody else's shit. My own shit, I could deal with.
I actually saw her mother more than I saw her- I'm pretty sure Lorelai Gilmore the First had a thing for my uncle, 'cause she was in the diner a lot.
But I would still see Rory occasionally. She would come into the diner, with or without her mother, and sometimes I would see her hanging around with that Asian chick friend of hers. It drove me crazy, and every time I saw her, it made me hate her more, because I couldn't have her.
The day that the owner of the Independence Inn came through, Luke thought it would be just brilliant to introduce us (question: why?). Now, let it never be said that I'm incapable of being polite. And I'd probably have been nicer to Mia or Tia or whatever her name was if Rory hadn't been standing there. She was like a lodestone, pulling my eyes back to her repeatedly no matter what else I tried to think about and look at. So I took the first opportunity to make my usual sarcastic parting shot and get the hell out of there.
This was getting pathetic. I wasn't the guy who went around all moon-eyed over a girl who was clearly beyond me. I finally resolved to do something about it; Rory might be about a thousand steps above me in the social strata of this hicksville, but no one was going to resist the Mariano charm for long. (That was assuming that such a thing existed.)
Either way, I cornered her, ironically at a corner, the perfect inspiration for my opening line.
Her disparaging words on the situation I "had gotten Luke into" tore me up a little, I won't lie. The fact is, I really did care about Luke. He was an ass, but he was an ass who cared about me, which is more than I can say about a lot of people in my life. And the fact that she obviously thought of me the same way everyone else did- as a loser screwup slacker- hurt a lot more than any passing social dip the big guy was going to suffer.
But she seemed to be working past her anger even as we stood there. I was just winding up to make a move, say something, hell, maybe just kiss her senseless like I'd been dying to do since she'd called me Dodger, when Mr. All-American walked up.
Yep. My dream girl was taken.
Figures.
"So I'll see you around," she said. Classic Rory- even when she was pissed at me, she was still being nice out of habit if nothing else. Is it pathetic that that was part of the attraction?
"Seems to turn out that way, doesn't it?" I said bitterly, as I walked away. Yep, it did seem to turn out that way. She would go off and make out with Mr. Perfect and I would be left to continue hoping for the next time I would see her reading in the park.
After a great deal of silent self-berating for even thinking I had a shot, I resolved that I had to just go back to hating her. So what if this weird thing she did to me was a lot more than lust? So what if I dreamed about her? She was a fucking tease, and I could hate her for that. Even if she defied the definition of a tease, I didn't care. Even if she had no clue what she was doing to me, I didn't care. Hating her was easier than admitting the truth to myself: that I might actually have fallen in love with Rory Gilmore.
Fuck.
Too late.
Please review? Even if it's to tell me how much it sucks, I'd still like to know.