Title- Ceasefire
Author- Kàra
Summary- "I'm not so good at the small talk." "You're doing okay." Ever wonder what would have happened in Lost and Found if Rory hadn't busted in, and Jess and Lorelai had actually been allowed to finish their conversation?
Ceasefire
"Hey, Jess!"
At the sound of Lorelai's voice, he instantly stopped working to glance over the edge of the roof to where she stood on the lawn. "Sorry," he apologized automatically. "Too loud?"
"Oh, no," the brunette responded quickly, "It's just, uh, I've got a ton of leftover Chinese food in the kitchen. I thought you might like some lunch."
"No thanks," he responded automatically. The last thing he wanted to do was spend any more time than necessary in her company- hers, or just about anyone's in this 'charming town.' Clearly none of them wanted him around, and he wasn't too keen on them. In all honesty, Lorelai was better than the rest of them, but she was still watching him and just waiting for an opportunity to run him out of town on a rail (and he couldn't kid himself that it had nothing to do with her concerns about his strange friends-like relationship with a certain blue-eyed daughter of hers).
Her perpetual smile faded a little, but she just shrugged. "Okay," she said, sounding only slightly put out. Not that that was any surprise.
As she turned and headed back towards the house, Jess leaned back over the gutters, preparing to commence scooping once more. But then Rory's earnest request from earlier came back to him and he sighed. He would never admit it except in the innermost reaches of his own mind, but he was whipped. As he'd told her, he couldn't guarantee that it would work, but he couldn't refuse her that. It was going to be awkward and uncomfortable as hell and he knew that, but he could handle a few minutes of small talk, right? He'd never actually attempted it before (never had a reason to), but people did it all the time.
He sighed. "Chinese sounds great," he called down to Lorelai's retreating figure.
"Really?" she asked incredulously, turning back to look up at him.
Already made uncomfortable under her gaze, he shrugged. "If you're sure you have enough," he said uncertainly. He partly hoped she wouldn't, and would rescind her offer and release him from obligation to be nice to her.
"Oh, there's plenty," she assured him, dashing his hopes. "Rory and I decided to take on the entire chicken column last night."
Anyone else would have been kidding. Sadly, he'd served the Gilmores one too many times to delude himself into thinking that they were part of 'anyone else.' Either one of them ate more in a single sitting than he did in an entire day. "Ambitious," he said dryly.
"Well, it's all out on the table, so come in when you're ready." Jess again heard that stilted, stop-and-start tone that she adopted frequently around him; over the past few months he'd come to realize that it was the tone she used when she was feeling nervous or awkward. It was somewhat reassuring to know that he wasn't the only one who didn't feel entirely comfortable in the presence of the other.
"I'm ready now," he said. As he said it, he winced inwardly. That even sounded awkward. He should have just nodded or said 'okay' or something. Lorelai nodded and disappeared into the house, and he proceeded to awkwardly clamber down from the ladder (he hated ladders, he hated them!).
When he arrived inside, Lorelai was holding a plate, apparently waiting for him. She gave him a tight little smile, then looked immediately back down at the wide array of white cartons spread across the table. "So, uh, basically everything here is chicken. You've got garlic chicken, kung pao chicken, sczechuan chicken, chicken in brown sauce, which looks and tastes remarkably like the sczechuan chicken except it's got these red peppers in it and if you eat them you die."
Jess snorted- he'd had his own experience with the spicy purplish fruits when he was nine and hoped never to taste them again.
"Plate?" Lorelai offered the object to him.
"Uh, I thought I'd--" He held up his mud-stained hands.
"Oh! Yeah, there's soap on the counter," she replied, pointing vaguely in the direction of the sink.
He crossed to the sink and turned on the tap, thinking desperately for something, anything, to say. Electing to focus on the most obvious choice for a topic, he said, "So when was the last time you had those gutters cleaned?"
"It's been awhile," she replied.
"Yeah," Jess said, finding that he was smiling despite himself. "I found an I Like Ike bumper sticker up there."
"Is it really bad?" she asked with a laugh.
He shrugged. "Won't be by tomorrow," he assured her, drying his hands on a red-checked towel (of course they would have a red-checked hand towel, it was the ultimate cliché of idyllic, small-town life) and tossing it back towards the sink.
"I like hearing that," Lorelai responded, giving him a smile which, to his absolute amazement, appeared genuine. She handed him the plate, now with accompanying fork.
Surveying the spread before him, Jess said, "So, you guys aren't too hot on vegetables." It wasn't a question: he'd taken their order how many thousands of times since he'd been forcibly removed to Stars Hollow?
Her grin dropped from her face and her eyes widened in mock umbridge. "What are you talking about? There's green peppers in the kung pao."
"My mistake," he said easily. And that, he realized, was kind of amazing. Lorelai Gilmore might be frighteningly energetic and cheerful almost all of the time (and not in the guileless, endearing way her daughter was), but she was also an excellent conversationalist. It was awkward, and he was still feeling the desire to flee the kitchen and never come back, but as long as they kept up the easy banter she partook in with nearly everyone, he would do okay. He was used to it from Rory, and he could keep up with it.
"So are you a healthy eater like Luke?" she asked.
He chortled, picking a few pieces of sczechuan out of the container. "No. No one is a healthy eater like Luke. Euell Gibbons wasn't a healthy eater like Luke."
"Wow," she said, eyebrows betraying how impressed she was. "It's been ages since I heard a good Euell Gibbons reference."
Jess shrugged. "Many parts of a pine tree are edible," he deadpanned.
"That's right," she said drolly. "God, I wonder what the research process was like to get that information!"
"I'd say fairly painful," he replied, taking a seat as she placed his now-full plate in the microwave.
Lorelai glanced over her shoulder at him as she set the timer on the microwave. "So, how's school."
Ah, yes, the dreaded topic. Wasn't there anything else an adult could think to converse with a teenager about? Why was it always school? Did they honestly think he had no life outside that soul-sucking vat of IQ-lowering insipidity? "It's still there," he responded, barely succeeding in keeping the irrational annoyance out of his voice.
"You on any teams or anything?" she asked, and in her defense, the question did seem totally innocent. She wasn't intentionally mocking him. But he still felt a flash of irritation.
"No," he responded shortly.
She gave him a sympathetic nod. "Not a jersey guy, huh?"
"No, definitely not a jersey guy. Though..." He pictured a certain tall, floppy-haired, basketball-playing someone. "...the idea of throwing a ball at some jock's head isn't entirely unappealing." In the silence that followed his statement, Jess realized that he'd made some kind of blunder. Thinking back on it, he realized how the comment must have sounded to anyone outside his own head- bitter, stereotypical, and generally angry at the world. Two of which, of course, were applicable, but he didn't have to make it quite that obvious. And without the background knowledge of his... feelings... for Rory and the growing hatred he felt towards the simpleton jerk she was inexplicably dating, he had come across sounding like a simpleton jerk himself.
"Look, I'm not really good at the small talk thing," he said, making a small gesture with his hands. It was the only thing he could come up with by way of explanation.
Lorelai shrugged. "You're doing okay." She picked up a white carton and glanced inside, then offered it to him. "Cold egg roll?"
"Why not?"
He took the offered item and took a bite, and didn't entirely manage to conceal the look of disgust that spread over his face.
"Bad?" she asked innocently.
He nodded. "Oh yeah," he mumbled around the remains of the egg roll. She gave him a warm smile and Jess was stunned to feel himself smiling back. Forcing himself to swallow the disgusting food, he leaned back a little in his chair. "So, uh... you run an inn," he said, and immediately felt stupid. Hadn't he just said he was terrible at small talk?
"Yeah. It feels like I've been there half my life. Which makes sense because, well, I have. Started out as a maid and just worked my way up."
"Cool," he said, for lack of a better response.
A very awkward silence ensued, and he was about to give it up as a lost cause. Whatever he had told Rory, he just was no good at this whole 'being nice to people' thing. Then, Lorelai said, "So, how is living with Luke?"
Jess shrugged. "S'okay. Beats dealing with Liz when she's drunk, so, y'know..."
Lorelai's blue eyes were sad when she looked at him, and he was tempted to just leave now. He hated her damn maternal instincts, because it just rubbed in the fact that a virtual stranger was being more of a mother to him over the course of one conversation than his actual mother had been during his entire childhood.
"Parents suck, don't they," she said sympathetically.
He nodded. "Looks like you've done okay, though," he said, deflecting the conversation away from himself.
"Yeah, but I had an entire town to help me," she responded. "And Rory's pretty much any mother's dream kid."
"I can see that," Jess responded. Rory was definitely special. Incredible, amazing, call her what you will, he had allowed her to gain far too strong a hold on him for his own good.
Lorelai was smiling again. "She said you like reading too."
"Yep," he said.
"Got a favorite book?"
Jess recognized what she was doing- she was trying to steer the conversation into a territory she knew him to be comfortable with, and he was disproportionately grateful. "Tie between To Kill a Mockingbird and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," he replied.
Lorelai's eyebrows shot up. "Robert Pirsig?" she asked.
He nodded. "That's the one."
"I'd have figured you as more of a Joseph Heller kind of guy," she commented.
Jess made a face. "I read Catch-22 when I was nine. Weird-ass book. Plot doesn't go anywhere for the first two hundred pages."
"I feel your pain," she said. "Rory forced me to read it a few years back."
At that moment, the microwave buzzed and Lorelai jumped from her seat to pull their plates out. She returned to the table and they ate their respective meals in affable silence. Some ten minutes later, when Lorelai was beginning to clear away the empty cartons, she stopped and turned to face him. "You're an okay kid, Jess," she said unexpectedly.
Taken aback, the only thing he could think to say was, "What?"
"Your small talk does need work, but you're okay." She gave him a small, friendly smile.
"And you've officially joined your daughter in a very tiny minority who think so," Jess responded.
Lorelai's smile widened. "Rory's a smart girl. I should know by now to trust her judgment. You actually..." She hesitated a second, then plunged on. "You actually remind me a little bit of me at your age. Except, at your age I was pregnant."
"Here's to hoping we never have that in common," he said, determined to keep the conversation light and not stray into the deeper territory she seemed to be opening invitation to.
She laughed. "Yeah, that might be a little awkward."
"Liz would have some explaining to do," he said.
There was a brief silence, then Jess decided he'd had enough bonding time for one day. Jerking his head at the back door, he said, "I should, uh..."
"Right!" Lorelai said, apparently remembering the reason he was here in the first place. "Yeah. Gutters. I Like Ike. Gotcha."
He opened the door just in time for Rory to fly past him, screaming, "Mom! Mom, I lost my bracelet!"
A/N2- I may be persuaded to write a sequel to this. You know how to do the persuading.