A/N: Okay, so Jin and I were looking at New York apartments online and there was a 3 bedroom with a really strange stain on the wall. That's where the idea for this was born, and then it followed me and tormented me until I wrote it down. So, it's short and sort of pointless, but I miss the god times with Rory and Jess and Lane and Dave, so I have brought it back for a few minutes. It's obviously set in the future or AU, whatever you want. If you're like me and you wish to ignore Rory ever having been with anyone but Jess then YaY! If you want Lane with Dave, YaY! If you like Rory in season four and five... well, as long as you love Jess you can still read it. This is a pretty character friendly story. Probably because it's short. Anyhoo, yeah, this is my first one shot, but it was beggging to come out, and I thought why not share it?
Oh, and do not use my other stories as a general idea for what this is going to be. If you've read and hated my other stories this is nothing like them. It's almost like I didn't write it, except I did. It's hard for me to let go of a story with one chapter, but there you go.
Dave sighed as he toted his pillow in the small third bedroom of the small apartment his girlfriend, Lane, shared with her best friend, Rory Gilmore. Dave's friend and Rory's boyfriend, Jess Mariano, was sitting in the floor flipping lazily through an issue of Woman's World.
"What are you in for?" Jess asked, glancing up from the magazine.
"I forgot we had a date, went out with a few friends. Apparently I'm four and a half hours late."
"Ouch," Jess remarked.
"Yep," Dave replied, throwing the pillow in the floor and sitting down, glancing over at Jess. "What are you doing?"
Jess gave a mock sigh and threw the magazine down. "Trying to figure out which bathing suit will flatter my bust size."
Dave smirked. "Find anything?"
"Nope. Guess I'll have to skip bikini season."
"You're probably better off."
"Probably," Jess agreed with a nod. "Do you ever wonder why we put up with them?" he asked, referring to the very girlfriends who put them in the "dog house."
"Sometimes."
"Ever figure it out?"
"No," Dave said, shaking his head. "It's kind of like that mysterious stain on the wall," he said, pointing to the stain on the wall they were both carefully avoiding. "You feel like you should try to figure it out, but you're almost afraid to know what it is, you stop trying to figure it out for the sake of your sanity."
Jess nodded. "Yep. Sounds about right."
"And you would think we would get tired of women who actually put us in the dog house," he said, gesturing around the room. "But you can never get bored with Lane."
"Same with Rory," Jess said with a shrug, fishing a pack of cigarettes out of his pockets. "Want one?"
Dave shook his head. "No. Lane has some sort of radar and she knows if I even look at one."
Jess nodded with a frown, looking at the pack in his hand. "Rory, too. I'll probably get additional dog house time if I smoke this and I've already been in it a lot this last couple of weeks." He sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. "I better not smoke it. I really miss having sex."
Dave nodded solmnly. "Just say no, man, just say no."
Jess smirked and put the pack of cigarettes down on the magazine. "How long do you think we have to stay in here?"
"Until they're not mad at us. Lane was muttering something about Spinal Tap when she sent me in here."
"They're probably going to watch it," Jess said.
"And we're stuck in here."
Jess nodded. "Seems that way."
"Well, that's good. It gives us a chance to catch up, have some manly... man to man time."
"Manly man to man time?" Jess questioned.
"Yeah."
"What does a person do with manly man to man time?"
"You know, manly stuff."
"So arm wrestle or drink brandy and smoke cigars?"
"Well, I'm not big on the whole arm wrestling thing and I'm sort of allergic to cigars. I was thinking more like talking."
"Talking?"
"Yeah, talking," Dave said with a smile.
"About what?"
"I don't know, things men talk about. Sports," Dave suggested.
"Sports?" Jess asked skeptically.
"Yeah. You know, football, baseball, hockey. Sports."
Jess raised an eyebrow. "Okay. What... kind of sports do you want to... talk about?" he asked as if the very idea seemed absurd to him.
"I don't know, really," Dave said with a grimace. "I was hoping you would have an idea."
Jess raised the other eyebrow. "Because I'm such a sporty guy?"
"Good point. Maybe we should talk about something other than sports."
Jess nodded. "Good idea."
"Last week Mama Kim called and gave me my weekly Bible quiz," Dave remarked.
Jess raised an eyebrow again. "You have a weekly Bible quiz?"
"Yes. The quiz was about Jacob this week. She also asked me what I would ask Jesus if he called me and let me ask him one question. I was about a second away from telling her I'd probably ask who his long distance provider was when I remembered who I was talking to."
"What did you ask?" Jess asked, glancing at Dave.
"I asked why there were starving children. I thought it was a good question."
"Did she?"
Dave shook his head. "She yelled at me for ten minutes and hung up after telling me I wasn't allowed to see Lane for a week."
"Huh."
"Yeah." Dave shook his head. "I never quite made out why it was a bad answer but I'll just cheat this week and go online. Hopefully I'll find something there. I did that last month when she asked me about dinosaurs or something, and apparently Pastor Kevin from Charleston is right up her alley."
Jess shook his head. "Get your number changed and tell her Jesus told you to."
"I thought about that once, but Mrs. Kim nows people, she has connections. What if God told her I'm lying?"
Jess smirked. "Because with wars going on, people having cancer, starving children and satanic gatherings God has nothing better to do than tell your girlfriend's mother that you told a lie?"
Dave shrugged. "You never know."
Jess just smirked and shook his head. "Don't know what to tell you, man."
"Does Lorelai do anything crazy like that?"
Jess sighed. "Well, she has a tendency to ask Rory if I've tried to stifle her coffee drinking at all, and if Rory says yes she gets me on the phone and demands an explanation."
"Has that ever happened?"
"Three times. But I learned my lesson. I usually don't say anything, But Rory is a coffee drinking machine, and the older she gets the worse it is. The first time I asked her is she would like me to hook her up to a keg of it. Lorelai wanted to know why I would joke about something like that." Jess rolled his eyes. "I finally stopped saying anything at all. If she wants to drink enough coffee to flood the country that's her problem, not mine."
"Do you think they'll chill out when they're our mothers-in-law?" Dave asked.
"No. They'll probably get worse, because then they can call us son."
"Do you think they will be our mothers-in-law?"
Jess raised an eyebrow. "Dave, we're sitting in a cramped little room with a mysterious stain on the wall, two pillows and a women's magazine because our girlfriends our pouting at us."
Dave nodded. "We're completely whipped, aren't we?"
Jess nodded. "Leashed and licensed."
Dave nodded again. "I hope Mrs. Kim at least cuts back to monthly Bible quizzes."
Jess and Dave both looked up as the door opened much sooner than expected and their girlfriends stood in the doorway.
"Do we get bread and water?" Jess asked.
"We're going to watch This Is Spinal Tap," Lane said.
"If you see the error of your ways you may come out and watch it with us," Rory finished.
"I definitely see the error of my ways," Dave said.
"I'm a changed man," Jess said mockingly.
Rory cracked a smile. "Good." She motioned for him to come with her.
"So, what did you two do?" Lane asked Dave.
"Oh, you know... manly stuff," Dave replied.
Jess smirked and shook his head. "Yeah, manly stuff."
Rory smiled and wrapped an arm around Jess' waist. "What kind of manly stuff?"
"You know, talked about sports, manly stuff."
"Sports?" Rory asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Hey, do you have popcorn? Because I would love some popcorn," Dave said.
"And drinks," Jess said with a nod. "I'll go get some drinks."
"And I'll get popcorn," Dave said, following Jess into the small kitchen.
Rory sat down on the couch, Lane sitting down next to her and they shared an amused smile.
"Jess knows nothing about sports."
"Dave knows less," Lane said with a nod.
"I wonder what they were really talking about."
"I don't try to understand them anymore," Lane said.
Rory smirked. "I know, but sports?"
They both roled their eyes and smiled as Rory turned on the television set.
A/N: So there it is. Short and simple, but I don't hate it. Let me know how you feel about it! (Hint hint) And if you didn't like it... I blame the stain. (bows head mock solemnly) Thanks! Hope you enjoyed it!