She Gets What She Wants by Oregano

She entered the diner without a word, and made her way towards the counter. He was leaning against it, his back to the entrance, entranced by the small book he held in his hands. He didn't hear the little bell tinkle.

"Aren't you supposed to be at school?" she asked with a disapproving glare.

He slowly turned around, pushed the book into his back pocket and smirked at her, all in one fluid motion. He perched his arms on the countertop, pushing his weight against them. "Why aren't you?"

She looked at him square in the eyes. "School holiday," she said almost proudly.

He closed his eyes for a second and gave her a slight nod. "Same here."

"Stars Hollow High never had any holidays during this month the whole time I went there," she snipped at him. She crossed her arms in front of her and furrowed her brow at him, but he didn't seem to mind her expression one bit.

He leaned closer to her to whisper, "Don't tell Luke--I need the extra cash."

She rolled her eyes. "For what?"

"What are you, the personification of my diary?" he shot back at her, his smirk still intact. "I'm not at liberty to say. Actually, I just don't want to say. So, what'll it be?" He grabbed an order pad and a pencil, poised to take her order down dutifully.

She glared at him, "Bacon cheeseburger with chilli fries and a cherry pie."

"Just so I'm direct about this: Ew," he said softly, as he wrote it down. When he was done, he ripped it off with a flourish and gave it to Caesar. Grabbing a coffeepot and a mug, he served her what the establishment was known for, thanks to her mother's word of mouth. He also poured it with a flourish, dipping the pot up and down when he was done. He grinned gallantly at her, as if pouring her coffee was the same as slaying a dragon. She just frowned at him.

"Get your books."

"Excuse me?" he asked, his tone matching his raised eyebrows.

"You heard me, rebel--get your damn books!" she said in a half-holler. If her gaze wasn't so amusing, he'd have thought it was challenging him to go to school. So she stood in front of him, blocked only by the counter, staring him down as if he would crack, which he would absolutely not do.

Her gaze intensified. Nope. He was not budging an inch.

Finally, she stretched over the counter and grabbed the front of his shirt with her fist and dragged him around the obstacle. "I can sue you for this, you know," he informed her with a small smirk. But she didn't seem to be paying attention to his words as she hauled him up the steps, pushing him up towards the apartment. When she finally managed to shove him in there, it was then she realised that she was alone. With him. In his apartment.

Not good.

She turned around and saw him grinning like a maniac at her. He leaned on a kitchen chair and nodded for her to proceed. "You didn't drag me up here for nothing, did you? Carry on with your bluster, please." He gave her a motion with his hand.

Very not good.

With shaking hands, she ventured towards his quarters, where all his stuff lay. "Good luck finding anything in there. The system only conforms to me, makes sense to me, and nobody else," he called from the kitchen. It was almost a singsong comment, and she didn't know if it angered her or made her more nervous. Wasn't there an MTV production like this? Where the girl busts out UV-ray machines to "check for specimen on the bed"? God, what the hell kind of television was she watching nowadays, anyway?

The search for his schoolbag proved futile, as she was pretty sure that he didn't really have one in the first place. She shook her head, as if to clear it and looked at him. "It's okay, no books then. But you're still going to school."

He materialised from behind the refrigerator carrying an apple and suddenly put on a schoolboy act. "But Ma'am, if I has no books, how's'll I learn all them brainstuffs?"

"Lane can be your book-buddy for today."

She watched him sort of grimace and then shake his head. "I don't think Lane's interested in being my buddy, book one or not."

She narrowed her eyes at him and asked, "Why is that?"

"I made an attempt at her locker combination the other day."

"Ah," she said, brightening up, "at least I know you've actually stepped foot in the campus."

He scoffed at her words. "You call that a campus? I call that a barn."

"It's quaint."

"The physics teacher is the Arts Department Head. That's not quaint, that's psychotic." He took a bite of the apple, all the while still staring at her. He knew it made her nervous, and to his evilness, used that information to his advantage. "I'm not going to school, so just stop trying. Your food's probably ready."

Conceding to his words with a slump of her shoulders, she ventured down to the diner behind him silently. "Where the hell is he, Caesar?" his uncle asked loudly from below. "He's supposed to be working today!"

As they came down, he saw them both. The man looked from them, to the stairs, to the apartment, and to them again. "You guys weren't...?"

"Oh, of course not!" she gushed, now embarrassed at what the situation looked like. When she said that, she saw him shift his gaze to the side, and his uncle breath a gigantic sigh of relief. This was awkward.

Suddenly, without warning, her mouth was open, and all syntaxes to her functioning common sense were cut. "Jess is ditching school to work for you today!" she cried quickly, her words almost tripping over one another. As she lay that information for everyone to take in, she saw his uncle's vein start throbbing.

There was a small pause, and then, "What?!" he yelled loud enough for glass to shatter. And then he went on this long, long diatribe about the importance of school and how he was not getting paid for any work that he was going to do for today, so he might as well go to school, God dammit.

As he stood there, squinting at his uncle's words that were slapping him in the face, his eyes shifted towards her in a leering fashion, but with an almost playful feeling behind it. She simply gave him her widest smile, walked around the counter, took her food and exited.