Story Title: Falling Away With You

Chapter Title: My Favourite Game (The Cardigans from Gran Turismo)

Summary: Literati. But that heat still hummed inside of her and was settling in places that he had never even known in her. He never had gotten past that damn belt buckle. All those feelings from so many years ago that she felt only with him were back.

Notes: Prepare yourselves! That's all you get for now!

xxx

I don't know what you're looking for

You haven't found it baby, that's for sure

You rip me up, you spread me all around

In the dust of the deed of time.

"It's been two goddamn days and she hasn't so much as picked up a phone, sent me an email, nothing. A fucking Post-It note would've sufficed. It's enough, I'm almost there."

He was shouting into the phone and steering with his hand draped casually on the steering wheel while his foot pressed down on the accelerator a little further. The fact that he was already going ninety-five, notwithstanding.

"You've gone apeshit, it's official," was the response on the other line.

"I may be apeshit, but I'm not a dumbshit. I mean, you know her about as well as I do. Is this normal?"

"No telling. I'm going to guess it's probably not."

"Fucking peachy, Colin. Really fucking peachy," Logan said with venom in his voice as he hung up and threw the phone against the passenger's side bullet-proof window, laying to rest in the seat.

A drive that should have taken him nearly a half an hour he had managed to complete in seventeen minutes. Without factoring in traffic, probably fifteen.

Logan was beginning to compensate as he heard the engine groan a little at the idea of surpassing one hundred miles per hour.

Compensation. What an interesting theory.

Logan Huntzberger knew it very well. Logan and everyone at Tiffany's, Burberry and the Cadillac dealership knew that his compensation knew no bounds. All his friends, girlfriends and family members knew of the very look on his face that meant death on his credit limits and a heart palpitation at the sight of the balance at the register.

But so many zeroes in all of their emptiness had a morphine effect on Logan Huntzberger.

Spending a thousand dollars for Logan was like a vitamin pill. It kept him sharp as a pin and vile as a prick.

And this is not a case of lust you see

It's not a matter of you versus me

It's fine the way you want on your own

But in the end it's always me alone.

"Jess?" Rory said, making sure he had heard her right. He looked a little blank as he stood there, halfway down the block, looking back at her with her arms crossed and her plaid pajama pants rolling awkwardly over her shoes, her eyes still red and her lips still a little swollen.

"I guess if you say yes, you're coming," he said, trying to make it real. He could not believe that it had all just come out of his mouth like that. Had he gone insane? He didn't need her on that trip, he couldn't function around her. The very sight of her, even as unprepared as she was, made him want to rip either himself or her clothes into absolute shreds.

It was impulsive, the only thing he ever knew how to be. So it sort of made sense, after all.

"What if something happens," she said, swallowing back her fear, "and I don't end up going?"

Jess shrugged, indifferently as he could pull off though he felt his heart drop into his stomach a little.

"Not much else I can do to convince you otherwise at this point." She was a little afraid that it meant he was giving up on trying to get it to work with her. Like that one kiss and the one proposal had gotten her out of his system.

But that heat still hummed inside of her and was settling in places that he had never even known in her. He never had gotten past that damn belt buckle. All those feelings from so many years ago that she felt only with him were back. Except now she knew the remedy for that ache and that writhing discomfort that flooded into her veins and thundered across her nerves.

"It's still a long ways away. A lot could change by then," she stated by way of explanation.

"Change doesn't have to be for the worst you know," Jess said. The look in her eyes changed again and she started walking towards him.

"There's something I never thought I'd hear you say," she mentioned while she felt the intensity of that discomfort increase proportionately to the shortening distance between them and how quickly her mind was racing.

He felt his head spin. He was halfway tempted to reach up and make sure that it wasn't about to fall off because she was getting a little closer all the time.

"Change is inevitable. Bad things don't always happen to people."

Then she was standing in front of him and there was nothing more to do.

And I'm losing my favourite game

You're losing your mind again.

I'm losing by baby

Losing my favourite game.

'How hokey is this?' Logan asked himself when he pulled off the exit ramp and drove into town, bypassing its main sections and pulling into her mother's driveway. Lorelai walked out the door.

"Logan!" she said, surprised.

"Lorelai," Logan said, slowly and low in his voice, as though he had not been expecting her to be the one that would walk out the door.

"I thought you were supposed to be in New Haven," she said, realizing suddenly why Rory had taken the tearful 30 minute drive home that morning. Even in his eyes she could see the panic and the fear. The anxiousness that one whole day had brought to him.

"I am. Where's Rory?" he asked, his eyes moving too quickly to maintain convincing eye contact with her.

"No clue. I came home for lunch and she wasn't here. Have you tried calling her?" Lorelai said while she looked in Rory's room for a beat, searching for her regardless of the fact that she knew that she wasn't there. Logan followed her into the house.

"Several times actually."

"Maybe her phone is off." Logan wanted to give her a sidelong glance to get his point across but couldn't draw it up out of himself fast enough to convey it correctly.

Instead he walked right out the door and got back into his car. Lorelai watched him with her mouth still open and her feet rooted to the floor. Instead of being apathetic, she picked up the phone.

I don't know what I've been working for

Another you so I could love you more

I really thought that I could take you there

But my experiment is not getting us anywhere

They stood there for a few seconds looking at one another until Jess started to crack a small smile. Rory followed his lead, not sure where he was going with his happiness. He had never been spontaneous with his happiness. It was a calculated, distant procedure, and even then it was rarely sincere.

He laughed a little and dragged his fingers through his hair. "I'm not exactly sure what's funny about all of this."

She laughed in agreement and shoved her hands into her jacket pockets, looking down at the ground a little bit. "Nothing really is." She looked up at him with her eyes slightly squinted and her voice quietly honest. "I still have a lot of loose ends to tie up in New Haven. Figuring out when I'm going to be done with the semester, talking to my editor at the paper."

Jess cut her off. "Your boyfriend." Her eyes came close to welling with tears and she nodded, casting her eyes down again. He pulled her chin up in proportion to the rate in which his heart sank when he saw her shame.

"Yeah," she admitted shakily, exhaling an emotional and calming sigh.

"He has no clue, does he?" Jess asked, his upper lip stiffening. He was not yet resilient enough to understand what had happened between them.

"I left today because of you, but I'm not sure that he knows that. I intend to tell him," she admitted, chewing on her bottom lip anxiously and pulling her hands closer to her body.

Jess's jaw clenched and absorbed the frustration that sprang to life throughout his body when she admitted that he was still her dirty little secret.

"Does your mom know?" he asked. She widened her eyes at him.

"In case it's managed to escape your attention, this isn't exactly something I planned on. Did I look like I was frantically calling my mom and Luke and my boyfriend while this was happening? This is just you and me right now."

Laughter came to life in his eyes. Laughter full of cynicism. "You know that this wasn't as spontaneous as you make it out to be. We both know you better than that. This is not news to you."

She shook a little at his write-off of her honesty and tried to overcome the sting of the air between them. A sting that was ramped up by his doubtfulness.

"And what? You just came back to Connecticut because you felt like it? Not a chance."

He tried with uncontrolled desperation to muster a solution, coming up as empty as he began. "Then why the hell are we here, Rory? What has brought us back to Star's Hollow?" he came close to screaming.

"I don't know!" she shrieked, her hands held high, completely unsure. "All I know," she said while her voiced edged down with every beat, "is that we're both here. And that's not something to be ignored. We need to just…ratify this moment. I know it sounds stupid and professional and I know that you probably hate how I'm wording this. That doesn't change what's happening. How often do we get second chances like this?"

Jess looked at her for a few seconds while she caught her breath and lowered his blood pressure by staying silent and unclenching his fists.

"How do you suggest we 'ratify this moment' exactly?"

She inhaled sharply. "We should…shake on it or something," she suggested, moving a little closer to him, intent on doing what she had said she would do.

"Sure," he laughed, uncomfortable with her professionalism.

She reached her hand out to his, very ladylike. It was limp at the wrist and her fingers were slender as they reached out to his tan and work-worn hands. Just like that, when his fingers reached the outside of her hand, their lips were together faster than either of them could've understood.

The mechanical burn of the friction in the air was getting too much to bear, and he finally pulled his face away from hers. She opened her eyes wide and he felt the internal tearing of his defenses so cleanly that it was beyond tragedy.

"Did we do that right?" he asked, the smile on his face sinister to everyone but her.

"That'll do," she said, backing away reluctantly. She was suddenly aware that they were in public. Hastily, she wrapped her jacket around herself a little tighter and crossed her arms over her chest, an attempt to keep the judgment from sticking.

Jess simply stuck his hands into his pockets and continued smirking, though his heart was pounding and his palms were sweating. He prayed silently that she hadn't noticed the way he trembled slightly when her fingers snaked around her hand.

I had a vision I could turn you right

A stupid mission and a lethal fight

I should've seen it when my hope was new

My heart is black and my body is blue

Logan felt his pulse race, the shots of anxiety that jolted down his body every once in a while increasing not only in intensity but also in the frequency of their occurrence.

And even once he could see her, the panic was still there. And that panic would manifest itself into clenching anger when he saw what she was up to.

She was up to her eyes in anxiety and way in over her head with romantic troubles. And he could see only some of that when she stood on the street with her arms crossed and her head bowed a little.

But there was Jess. And Jess changed the whole picture.

And I'm losing my favourite game

You're losing your mind again

I'm losing my favourite game

You're losing your mind again

I'm losing my baby

Losing my favourite game

Logan pulled to the side of the road while anger flooded fresh into his system, married with adrenaline; a sickening and lethal union. The combination that caused him to pull haphazardly onto the side of the road and throw himself from the car, walking authoritatively across the street.

Jess saw him first. A similar shot of adrenaline coursed through him at this sight, possibly coalesced with fear. Fear that this was the last moment where Rory might be even partially his. He wasn't sure he should tell her. Maybe if he held onto this shard of a second a little longer, he could hold on long enough to keep her there with him.

Suddenly he didn't think he could live without her in the passenger's seat on the way to California.

So he just looked into her eyes and held on tight, hoping that she couldn't tell how panicky he was.

"Want to tell me what exactly you're up to?"

I'm losing my favourite game

You're losing your mind again

I try…

I'm losing my baby

You're losing a savior and saint.