Not Alone
Chapter 3 - Fairytale
Disclaimer: No owning going on. Lyrics are still Dashboard Confessional's; reference from mythology.
A/N: This is the final chapter. Thanks very much to everyone for the support on this fic. All reviewers—I appreciate it tons. I'm sorry this took so long. By the way, to clarify: I didn't base this on the actual history of the show. I suppose I could go into what actually happened in their past…but this is only about what's happening "now."
To Lorena, and Kellie, for all the encouragement. To Elise, because she shared inspiration cookies with me! And to Robin, for the fantastically fabulous read-over.
-
and time has been spread so thin
it's just hours till the day begins
and the things that are keeping you here
are not keeping me here (at all)
-
"You need me. This place is fucking disgusting," he states.
"Yeah, well, I know where you live," Trevor answers skeptically.
His head still pounds, residue from the previous night, but he lets the repetitive clicking form mountains and molehills inside ridges in his brain. He's so mind-numbingly used to this. Sometimes he longs for more pain. Sometimes he wishes he were in more trouble.
Stay away from that which steals the green. Stay far away from that which brings out the deep red blood.
Somehow, the two are always intertwined.
Jess ignores the jab and digs the rag in his hand further into the rough-grained wood of the table.
"Jeez. This entire table is covered in something," he mutters. "And it's sticking to this cleaning crap. You need to start laying down the law, Trev."
"There is no law, Jess." Trevor slams a stack of plates into one of the plastic bins. Dishwasher soap and water sloshes over the edge, onto the counter, dripping into the sink and the edge of a clean mug. "Shiiit."
"Sure there is. 'Quit acting like pigs or get the hell out.' It's nothing too hard."
"Unfortunately, in a service-oriented business, we're bound to that whole courtesy thing, if we wanna make some kind of profit. Plus, there's the money. And the tips. Different in…what is it…your…?"
Jess glares at the salt shaker. Trevor stares and watches him say nothing, understanding perfectly.
Unemployed. Screw him: everybody's been there. Everyone starts out that way. Some people can climb out of the hole, some can't (that is just the way it is). If you can't, well then. 'Least serve as a scapegoat for those still making their way there.
He gets drunk, off the 'job'. It doesn't make sense not to have what you want.
He sails on nonexistent ideas of warm skin and soft lips; he tastes unreality and cold metallic failure with every sip of liquor. Tap water begins to taste equally bitter, equally unsatisfying, and much less costly. He is thankful only that he doesn't have to shell out multiple dollar bills for glass bottles of Pellegrino.
In college, they drink bottled water, don't they, he thinks bitterly.
He likes to lie to himself, ridiculous tall tales to remind himself he is (always) somewhat inferior.
In college, they run their brand new silver cars over Nalgene bottles, making bets as to whether they will break.
Then, they buy new ones.
-
She is no longer good at her delicate art form: The Normal Conversation. She can't keep it up; she frightens people away. She'll believe anything. She's no good at listening. She feels like Atlas, sometimes.
Hello, I'd like some help holding up the world!
It's not like she hasn't tried.
It's only that she hasn't tried hard.
And that, as she's proved now, gets one nowhere.
Degradation piles on her shoulders. She has points on her license, she has parking tickets left unpaid. She forgets to lock her car door and she tortures herself with the fact at night. She awakens and leaves the next morning to find the car in the same position, doors frozen shut.
It's a routine.
That's all.
She feels worthless. She's getting used to it, being unhappy. But no matter how upset she is, there's always that reclusive spark of hope. Hang on, hang on.
-
She weighs on his mind. She wasn't supposed to.
That meeting was much too sudden, too unexpected to be real, to be normal. But it is this that confirms it was not a drunken fantasy: his tend to be all too realistic. They are nothing but painful. They would make her cry; for him they only hurt. They tear and rip, they spike and throb inside him, he deals. Sometimes he thinks West Point is located inside his head. Sometimes he thinks he's lying underneath stampeding bison. Sometimes he thinks he's stuck here, here in this life for forever, and he'll never wake up from this.
-
When she leaves the café she's been sitting in, still coffee-less, a stranger has to grab her arm to steady her, she's shaking so much. His twinkling eyes are asking if she's overdosed on caffeine. She stumbles and his face sobers, and he asks gingerly if she needs a ride, or anything.
No, she tells him.
"Let me give you a hand. You got work?"
"Not today," Rory mumbles.
"Need a drink?"
"What kind of drink?"
He laughs out loud. "So you're one of those girls?"
She flushes. "No." She pushes past him and he shuts the door in her face, his arm crossing her eyes and nose just slowly enough for her to see how good he smells, how much better it is than smoky nothing.
"You're not going anywhere. Calm down." He calms her with his eyes, bright and hazel, an unwavering stare. "Espresso? Mocha?"
She talks too quietly for him to hear until she realizes he means it, she's not getting away without an answer.
"Either."
Against her best judgment, she sits; he pushes a to-go cup into her hand. She sips, and chokes, and stares angrily at the table. It's black coffee, strong; there is nothing else in it. She burns her tongue but continues drinking.
"Good," he says triumphantly. "That'd wake anyone up."
"Congratulations," she answers sardonically.
"So. I believe an explanation is in order," he states.
"You do."
"Yeah, I do. I bought you coffee."
"Some coffee."
"Aren't we grateful. That's what happens to the indecisive. Let's start with names, shall we?" He waits, impatient. "Nick."
"Rory."
"What're we doing here, Rory?"
"What is this 'we' stuff?"
"Okay. You tell me, I'll tell you." She looks at him warily. This one, he won't give in on. He sounds nice. His hair's not spiked and it's not dyed green.
He bought her coffee. She feels like crying.
-
"Thank you," she says shyly as they bus their table.
Gently, he lays a hand on her wrist. "It gets fun, eventually, I promise."
Startled, she looks into his eyes. (Whatever you do, don't. get. mesmerized.) "Gets fun?"
"Being an adult," he says kindly, smirking slightly. "We can't all be seventeen forever." He expects, she thinks, that she will laugh.
Crisply, she slides her empty tray into place, tosses away her to-go cup with a flick of her wrist. She feels herself slip back into her mind, and she's relieved; only a little sad.
"Thanks for the coffee," she bites off. "Have a nice life."
He doesn't say a word, mentally kicking himself and taking a long swallow of his own drink.
One of those girls.
A rush of cold air catches her as she slams the door, and instantly she falls apart. There have been few moments in the past few weeks when she felt safe, when she was okay…when she was afraid for the right reasons. That's what she wants right now, what she needs. She wants that one instantaneous coincidence back, to hold, to hang on to. If she got another chance, she wouldn't let go so very quickly. She cannot taste him on her lips and she wishes she could.
Serendipity, please, she begs, silently.
But he's very much gone.
Shit, she thinks.
That's gone, she corrects herself quickly. That's gone, it's gone. It's gone.
He's gone.
-
She's tried to lie to herself, but she saw where he walked when he left her.
She's tried to be her nonchalant self, but constantly, incessantly, half-consciously sometimes, she's been watching for him, and she's been finding answers. She does not stop to think that he is leaving clues, red herrings, an unclear yet discernible path. She feels a little smarter when things come to light, when clues fit together and start to make sense: the door of a bar she recognizes that swings shut when he slips inside, the stoplight crossing Lexington she saw him pass when she roamed the city. It's good for her, it's better than losing her mind, and she has nothing else to fill it with.
Now, though, the hints have disappeared. Her mind is a blank slate; in the place of chalk marks there is guilt. Screeching and poking, etching itself into her. Rivets tearing through her skin, liquid regret stinging the cuts they leave behind.
-
The bartender knows her name. He could greet her, but he doesn't. She sits at the counter and edges her stool over until most of her face is hidden by a pillar. She is not here awaiting conversation, she isn't here to lose herself in someone else.
Soon Danny (bartender and boss) slips on his leather jacket and is gone, leaving Alexa (thin and tall, with strikingly bright hair that may or may not be dyed, 'Lessie' at the bar) to take over, most likely to entice the guys surrounding Rory to do just that, lose themselves. When she grows tired of teasing them, holding shot glasses just out of reach before she sets them down, she notices Rory.
It's convenient, this place, that way.
"Let me guess," Lessie says loudly.
Her voice naturally echoes across the entire building, especially now: it's all comparatively quiet. Occasional arguments burst from groups of people hunched together—besides that, there are sounds of clunking glasses; the sipsand gulps one usually hears at this time of evening.
"Please don't."
"Little Miss Stubborn." Rory has had it for 'little,' tonight. She's about to open her mouth when the comment she plans appears in the centers of her eyes. "Sorry," Lessie amends, quickly as possible. Rory straightens. "…You haven't had anything yet."
"I don't need one."
"You don't."
"No."
"I wouldn't pick this as a lounge chair then, sweetie."
Rory glares.
"Fine," she says, moving back to the boys who are now holding up mugs and shouting, catcalling. "Just fine." She drags out the last syllable, long and slow, and Rory's lip trembles, but she bites it hard, tasting blood, digging her fingernails into her wrist.
"Lessie."
Alexa also has an ear for the quiet tones; the people who don't yell or pathetically try to provoke her tend to be those who need a drink most. She's glad to get away from all the screaming. (Exhilaration from that shit is always brief.)
"I'll take that drink, if you don't mind."
"Not at all."
Rory takes a shaky breath, wrapping her hand around the cold glass and holding it up, steady. She angrily shoves back the sudden temptation to say "Here's to you," and she swallows it hard, several swallows' worth it looks like; she only needs a few. It's all the memories, it's all that lonely crying, it's all the desperate fucking desire, done and gone, down her throat.
"That," a rough voice says behind her, "looks like exactly what I need."
Maybe she expected this. Either way, she does not look up. Water slips from her eyes to her chin, she covers her face with her hands.
"Don't be shy." It's soft, still so roughly said; in another universe the statement could be construed as gentle. She wishes, for a moment, that they could live in that one.
"I'm not," she cries. "I just, just, hate you."
-
Take two, the producer shouts, clapping sharply (go! go! go!).
In this new scene, she's waiting for someone she knows, someone who happens to look vaguely like Jess. It's not his fault and it's not on purpose, it's just the slightly Italian look, the curly brown hair, the way the eyes are set in his face, perhaps his smile.
The old Jess (as she's affectionately taken to referring to him, in this second cut); there was a dead nerve or something at the edge of his mouth that she always felt when he kissed her. She loved his smirk, and she saw it so often, but now, in this new scene, she has someone new, who fully smiles.
In this new scene, this man sweeps in and in the same movement, his arm goes around her waist. Lessie smiles at him, a smile of recognition, a smile at Rory that says she knows he is hers, and Rory smiles back.
In this new scene, she is wearing a jacket even though it's not cold, because it has memorabilia in the pockets, ticket stubs and plastic rings, and she wants it to be close to her. And after they're done, she will get on the back of his bike and they will ride away, they will ride fast with the wind in her hair.
She has just come back from a concert, meeting this man here. He is asking her how it was. She's forgetting the song name, and the band name, and she's even forgetting his name, and she wishes she could cry, but she won't allow herself to.
The alcohol sours in her throat; it is very cold in her mouth.
-
"I hate you," she repeats.
"Nice to know I'm remembered. Lessie?"
Alexa glances from Jess to Rory. Connection? she is asking. Do you mind? Would you tell me? Rory can feel the curiosity, spilling across the counter, searing her hands and her wrists and her elbows resting on the wood. Instinctively, she pulls back and does not open her mouth. Jess takes the hint and stares at Rory instead, not even looking to accept the mug Alexa sets in front of him. He takes it with his left hand, raises it to his mouth, and stares as if it's a contest. Desperately, Rory tries to recall if he has blinked yet.
"What?" she says, making an effort to be affronted.
"Come on, you want it."
(Attention? Perhaps that'd be nice.) "I do not!"
He grabs her glass right out of her hand. She wasn't aware of how tightly she'd been gripping.
For awhile, he watches. She looks up, then down, right left and diagonally. There is nowhere left (in the world) but his eyes, and she damn well won't look there. She bores a hole through her shoes with a withering stare.
"Lessie?" she spouts up suddenly.
"Yes?"
"Another, please?"
He laughs at her, condescending, superior.
"Another," she says with a lower tone.
-
Dizzy.
That's how he'd describe this, right now.
Her, she's dizzy, she can't walk straight.
Him, he doesn't know what he's doing.
This, this is a fucked up situation and he should never have come at all. He will blame it on himself. She will get headaches and throw up. They both will disappear then (and all will be fine).
Him, tired of her attempt to be strong, her, growing sick of his repeating the question ("one more?"), of the flash of his money over the counter to Lessie's hand, of the growing nausea in her stomach.
There won't be the same careful protection, the quick cutting off for a pretty girl with honey brown hair and sparkling blue eyes in a clean cardigan, not with him beside her.
"We're drinking, you and me," she says.
For a long time, he just looks at her, again.
"Oh, Rory," he says, because it's all he can think of.
-
"Oh, god," she says, much later.
"You know what?"
"What?"
"You're not as much of a lightweight as I thought you were," he admits.
"Glad I met your approval." She searches around for her jacket. "Where'd I…" She's standing, feeling around in the darkness, on the floor. The corners of the room are wet and muddy from boots walked through puddles, but she searches there, too. "Where'd I…"
Then she's in a seat at a table on the floor, not the counter, and everyone's around her but at least they're far enough away, not in her face, and she is crying, dry heaving.
He's just sitting there.
"Is that all you wore?" he questions. "I think you've got everything. Calm down."
"I can't fucking drive," she wails.
"You have a car?" he says, raising an eyebrow. She tosses him her key ring, and he catches it overhand, standing up a bit in his seat to reach. "Nice throw." It's a house key—an apartment, he discovers, reading the inscription, and the key to Lorelai's home in Stars Hollow, and a bike lock code on a plastic panel. There's a car key, and a piece of tape with a date to pick it up from the mechanic.
He pockets it.
"Did you have anything yet?" she asks, tilting her head at him. "To drink?"
He's about to say yes, and then he tells the truth.
Part of him wants to make up a story about an AA meeting. It would freak her out, it would scare her into submission and maybe she'd stop screwing herself up. Part of him wants to tell her he doesn't want to corrupt any girls. Part of him wants to tell her, spitefully, that he's on a high from the woman he just slept with and nothing can ruin that, not vodka, not nothing.
"Not yet."
"Go ahead. I'll pay." He resists snorting at this.
"No."
"No?"
He leans back in his seat. "How do you feel right now?"
"Like…like stampedes."
Worry crosses his face. "Like stupid," she says forcefully. "I'm fine." Her voice is slurred and shaky but better than he'd expected. "Is the bus still running?"
He nods, and they sit, and sit, and sit.
The club begins to empty out, more people coming in, the atmosphere quieting down.
"You know, it's not worth it," he tells her.
She turns her head toward him in question. He waves his hand around.
"All this. It's better for celebration, not depression." What a hypocrite. "You won't get this lost." He is eyeing her, up and down, and some urge, something in the back of his throat keeps jerking up to ask if she's okay before he swallows it down.
"I'm not lost."
"No," he agrees. "But you act it very well."
She sniffs and looks up at Jess. "What are you doing here?"
Drunken nights and nothing he really wants. Lost, in the city he knows like the back of his hand, because he fucking wants to be lost. Back alleys for shortcuts when these routes actually take him longer, jobs he shouldn't have had and took anyway that were minimum wage. Unemployment and blank stares from idiots like Trevor. Frustration and no accomplishment and no fucking nothing and damn double negatives.
"Hold out your hand."
Quizzically, dizzily, she does as he says.
Softly, he places her keys back in her palm.
"I don't know why I'm here," he explains.
"Whatever," she mumbles.
He smiles—smirks?—smiles, folding her trembling fingers over the cold metal, keys' ridges digging into her skin, her grip tightening.
"Next time you plan to get smashed," he says, "take me with you."
-
"I never planned this."
"Oh, no?"
"I was trying to impress you."
No. Someone as private as she should never drink (not a sip). Please, Rory, shut up. He wills her to be silent.
"Me?" he inquires.
"Yeah. I, I've never—"
"You're an awful liar."
"This is all lies," she informs him. "I'm not supposed to be here—" Flustered, she glances around, trying to see, has she forgotten anything?
"Damn straight you're not."
They stop, staring at each other. There are tear streaks on her face, dust and sweat on his.
"You know," he says, "I came in here intending to be five minutes away from needing my stomach pumped."
"You're joking," she says, jumbling her syllables as she gets the sentence out.
"Nope."
"What happened?" She shivers, suddenly chilled.
"Saw you."
"Stunned by my beauty?" she says sarcastically, and the thought crosses his mind that he should get her drunk more often.
(Wait. What?)
"Something like that." Her shoe is tapping what she thinks is the table and is really Jess' foot. Anxiously, frantically, she can't sit still. Something about this situation is driving them both crazy, but he notices, she looks a little happier, a twisted kind of happy, a messed up version of the girl he used to kiss above a diner. "You remember where you live?"
Death glare. It's only a little unfocused. (She's been doing a lot of glaring tonight.) 'Does she remember her address?' Excuse him! She's done this before. The memory grabs her heart and wrenches, squeezing hard.
"Okay, then. Get out of here." He's done his job.
She stands, stranded, shaking. Okay, Rory, he thinks in his subconscious. Whatever. Kill me one more time. "Get the fuck out of here," he mutters. He wants her away; he is sick of her false hope. She'll disappear, she'll come back on the front of the paper in a glowing ball gown with a birth announcement and pretty man in a tux beside her, and she won't remember tonight after she splashes the cold water on her face. He is silent, dark and possibly handsome, utterly forgettable.
She leaves. She slams the door behind her and a wisp of cold air slices through the smoky atmosphere and she is gone.
And she opens it again, and she holds her hand up genially, and she stumbles on her feet, looking helpless and silly.
She reaches into his pocket; he braces himself, waiting for her to pull herself flush against him. This is the end of the story, this is the beginning of the fairytale (to think, he never believed in those—surely Cinderella was getting totally screwed over).
She searches in his jacket, right then left side, then, blushing, slips her hand into the pocket of his jeans. She draws out his package of cigarettes.
She tosses it, clumsily, into the garbage. She tries a half-assed imitation of a smirk.
And then she's gone.
And there's a card with a phone number scribbled on the vinyl side, ink already rubbing off on his fingers, in his pocket, imprinting the number on the coat pocket lining with a smudged dark stain.
He doesn't feel lightheaded, he isn't entirely craving relief. Something besides the usual crap, something intangible, has him on a high. She's tripping over litter and debris on side streets now, eyes half glazed over but walking steadily back from the bus stop, on her roundabout way home. He diluted more than half her drinks.
Likely, she will get there.
(Mission accomplished, he thinks. Pride restored.)
Early the next morning, he will arrive at her doorstep, making sure.