A/N: Thank you to those who reviewed last chapter :) Oh, also, I re-read it and noticed so many little errors – they annoyed me, lots. I apologize for them, and also apologize if there are any in what follows...that's what I get for bouncing around from videos to reading to music to...any other in a plethora of things I amuse myself with.

Clench, Unclench

He had no concept of time as they lay there; he didn't pay attention to the door, worrying about it swinging open and an angry Luke finding them, yelling, throwing her out with a look of disappointment. He had no fears of Lorelai bursting in, damning him to the deepest depths of hell.

He experienced nothing but the feel of her on him, pressing into him, rubbing the burning skin on his lower abdomen with cautious hands full of refreshing inexperience. The warmth that her being exuded poured into him from her lips and shy tongue, filling the cold that lay within him.

Their breaths were shared, short, and heated. The only air he took in was that which she exhaled, and conversely she only took in what he let out. His hands rested comfortably in the small curve where her spine turned into her behind, and he didn't push her, just focused on how good it felt to have her there, to have her be willing to finally accept it.

Jess pushed away the dark clouds of the moment when she would awaken from the dream of their kiss – when she would shove him away, off of her, and begin some rant. He didn't want to listen to the ticking time bomb that was somewhere between their bodies, counting down the minutes until this would blow up in their faces. All he wanted was to focus on the present, for once – not think about how this would affect the next hour, day, week, month.

For the time being, it seemed that Rory felt the same. He tested her boundaries for a moment, leaning into the millionth kiss with his teeth slightly bared, and he caught her bottom lip. She gasped when his lips brushed against hers afterwards, and he smirked into her mouth. Her hands continued to wander, resting on his biceps and gripping him ever so slightly before reaching back up to grasp at the ends of his hair.

She pulled away from him then, looking up at the door nervously and biting her lip. He leaned forward and put his lips to hers again, drawing out the bottom lip and teasing it before pulling away and then resting his forehead against hers. Rory looked up at his eyes, her own showing signs of perplexity and uncertainty. He met her gaze with ease, feeling dazed, but...well, happy somehow.

"This was...um, nice," she mumbled, her voice soft and bashful. Rory's cheeks had a pink tint and Jess smirked at the way she reacted with just making out – he hoped that one day he could pale that blush with his hands, mouth, with his breath and touch, surprising her and showing her the horizons of what was unknown to her.

In response, he nodded casually, eyes sparkling slightly. He didn't want to show too much pleasure over what had happened, because he had a feeling that if he did, he'd only regret it soon since she'd probably just fall all over herself trying to apologize and leave. Leaving him alone again, to deal with all this shit by himself.

But he ignored that thought for the moment. He'd wait to be angry – put it off until the last possible second, as she was starting to lift off of him. For now, when she was still gelled into him as though they'd been created as one, Jess forgot about the bad. It didn't matter for the moment.

"Sorry if um...I..." that caught his attention. Was it starting now? Was she about to go? He felt his heart go hard and his stomach dropped and he looked back up at her, expecting her to finish the thought.

"What?" Jess prompted her softly, but still with an edge to his voice. He stroked her hand carefully, trying to memorize the wrinkles and somehow imprint them into his own fingers for safekeeping in the future. The bad-ass part of him and the sap were duking it out within him, and slowly but surely, the sap seemed to be winning.

"Well...if I wasn't...uh...very -" Rory stopped, took a breath and the last word was a whisper, "good. At...this, I mean. I'm rambling, sorry."

His chuckle lacked the force of a full laugh and he glanced up at her worried brow, her confused eyes.

"You really weren't as bad as you thought," he told her, licking the smirk off of his lips unsuccessfully. She glared at him, completely serious.

"Jess, come on. I'm...not...this stuff is new for me. Can you please just be...sympathetic? I know it's not exactly in your operating manual, but do you mind making an amendment or something?" Rory mumbled grumpily, shrinking into the couch and away from him a bit. Desiring the full warmth of her again, he pushed against her and ran his lips down her jawline until his mouth met her ear.

"I'd be happy to," he murmured, smirking against the shell of her ear when he felt her squirm a bit under him. Jess kissed back around to her lips, brushing a few tendrils of her hair away and resting a hand on the side of her face and another down by her hip.

She pulled away and shoved back from him just a little bit, readjusting herself on the sofa and running her hand over her lips.

Here it comes, he thought bitterly, gripping the fabric of the couch with insurmountable frustration. He rolled his eyes and pushed his hand through his hair angrily before meeting her eyes again with a hard, merciless expression.

She recoiled, her mouth parting slightly, and he felt something acidic in his gut – was it...guilt? He rarely, if ever felt that emotion, and so it was difficult for him to recognize it from out of the blue like that. Even though he couldn't confirm that it was...guilt (the world rolled around in his mind unfamiliarly), Jess still felt the need to soften himself.

He looked back at her curiously, offering up a tilt of his head and silently beckoning for her to speak her mind.

He didn't expect what he got.

"I don't know what to do," she admitted. "I'm so...ugh!" she crushed a nearby pillow beneath her delicate fingertips, and he watched her hands become red from the consistent crushing of the pillow. "I don't understand this, Jess. Why is it happening. I shouldn't be asking you of all people, but I just – there are no freaking answers! Dean's perfect, he's the best; and I...I don't know..." She turned her gaze out into the black night and he stared at her somewhat blankly, waiting for the rant to end.

Rory turned to fix him with a gaze of her own, searching him – looking for what, he didn't know, couldn't tell. For once, Rory was unreadable.

"Rory, what the hell do you think I'm gonna do about it?" He stated it calmly, despite the fact that he could feel the buddings of anger inside him. She couldn't just say this, she had to be the one with some sort of reason here; he couldn't handle them both feeling around in the dark. Rory had to be the rational one, because he couldn't think straight. It angered him that she didn't know flat-out that she wanted to be with him, that she even for a second flitted back to Dean.

Their eyes stayed locked as he felt the fury rise in his veins, boiling in the tips of his fingers as he clenched fists under his thighs.

"Just...stop!" She told him breathlessly, exhaustion in her tone.

"Stop what!" Jess shot back at her, eyebrows raising along with his voice as he threw his arms out and stood up abruptly.

"Stop...this. Just quit it, Jess!"

"It's not my fault, Rory! You were a willing participant here, just like you were that day at Sookie's wedding. In fact, if I remember right, both times, you've thrown yourself at me. So really, I should be the one telling you to stop." His voice was beginning to get hoarse and his chest heaved as she stared back at him, angry tears pooling in her eyes.

"That's not what I'm talking about," she murmured, staring at the hardwood floors beneath his feet. "I'm talking about the way you get so...so angry when I tell you how difficult this is for me. I just can't...sort anything out. Do you know how much that sucks? Do you even care?"

That was a low blow. Because she damn well knew the answer to that.

He glowered back at her, taking a step forward, but making sure not to get into the territory where he knew he wouldn't be able to resist closing the gap to kiss her.

"Maybe I need to go," Rory told him, sounding defeated somehow. Their eyes met again, and he felt everything swirl together – the way her lips felt, her hands, and the way it felt now, when she wanted to leave. He'd known all along that this would end with her leaving, but he hadn't really thought it would be so soon. That sounded juvenile and naïve, but a part of him still was, since it hadn't grown up quite yet.

"I don't want you to." The words surprised him, coming from his own mind, his own lips, but their eye contact stayed steady and she pursed her lips almost imperceptibly as she looked back at him. It looked as though she was trying to keep from pulling in her bottom lip – like she just knew what she did to him.

Like she knew more than she let on. About...everything.

"And I don't want to, Jess. But..." she looked at him helplessly.

"Dean," they finished the thought together, and he swallowed the mirthless chuckle in his throat.

"I'm sorry..." Rory told him, and they both knew it didn't help anything. He felt the need to remind her, though, just because he was such a ruthless prick.

"That doesn't help much, Rory. Not when you come here, and start it all back up again. Not when you get me all tied into knots just to fall back away again. It's not fair, and I don't deserve it."

It amazed him when she looked shocked at this comment, and when she'd looked shocked at all the others before it. To him, it felt like he was slowly stripping away all of her childish beliefs, ripping off that protective shell – she needed to start realizing the effect she did have, what it did to him; how her actions didn't come off as innocent as she assumed they did.

"I'll just..." She looked up at him expectantly, like she wanted him to welcome her back into his arms.

That wasn't happening, his cold look conveyed.

"Go," Rory finished. "I'll go." Her hesitant shuffle picked up to a rushed scuffling along the floor and she slammed the door behind her. He didn't look back at her as she left, didn't watch her as she walked out. He stayed there, rooted to the floorboards, staring out the window.

His pathetic, wimpy little heart picked up a bit when the door creaked open only seconds later. He turned around and couldn't keep the hope from his eyes.

But it quickly vanished and was skillfully covered with a menacing glare when Luke walked in.

"What was Rory doing here, Jess?" He demanded hotly, slightly out of breath. "What did you do to her this time? Huh? Can't you leave well enough alone?" Luke was exasperated, disheveled; he looked worried, probably about Rory.

Jess ignored that last part, refusing to put her into this eqaution put the sarcasm back into its place within him.

"She came up to borrow a book. I won't bother telling you what it was called since I doubt you've heard of it. I'm sure your recent conquests of literature include Fisherman's Guide and the oven manual." He knew his snark wasn't yet up to snuff; he knew there were holes in it; and he knew Luke knew something was up.

"I don't believe you," Luke huffed, looking as though he was about to either shake Jess or punch him.

Or maybe push me in a lake, Jess thought derisively, a smirk spreading on his lips.

"Wipe that damn smirk off your face, you punk!"

Jess merely looked up at him, giving that fake look of innocence that he'd used many times before – eyebrows raised, eyes wide, hands up in a 'what did I do?' manner of expression.

"Now you listen to me. I knew Rory long before I even knew you existed beyond the name of 'Liz's kid'. She is like my own daughter -"

"I'm sure you'd like her to be, the way you look at Lorelai," Jess muttered under his breath. The wind was knocked out of him with the glare that Luke shot him, and it took a lot for him to have the wind knocked out of him. He shut his mouth, becoming a little more serious.

"And god help me, if you continue to screw around like this, you're outta here! You got that, Jess?"

He didn't answer. He was stuck on the idea that it was him doing the screwing around. He almost resented the fact that everyone always assumed he was the only culprit – Rory never did anything wrong, she never initiated. He was the one breaking her, corrupting her; the whole town thought it, and Luke himself voiced it.

Jess worked his jaw, clenching and unclenching his fists. Sure he had good reason to be blamed for this stuff, but somehow, it still burned him, the thought that no one would even consider including Rory, the picture of innocence and holiness, in this whole big fucking mess. It was all him.

He didn't know why he cared at all. Why should he care what people saw this as? Why should he care that she'd left him earlier? Why, why, why, why? He felt his brain begin to jumble around, the thoughts becoming jostled and mixed around, put together in combinations that he couldn't comprehend.

"I said did you hear me?" Luke boomed.

"I'm going out," Jess ground out in response, turning to the coat hooks by the door and yanking his leather jacket off of one. He didn't pay attention to Luke behind him as he left, and didn't acknowledge anything but the sound of the door slamming and the rhythmic sound of his feet pounding on the sidewalk outside.

A/N: Review and I'll send you a present. Okay, so I lied just there...but, seriously, when I get reviews, I squeal. Isn't knowing that you've made someone unbelievably happy enough of a gift? (;