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rubykatewritingTITLE: Nowhere That Isn’t Meant
AUTHOR:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rubykatewriting
PAIRING: Rory/OMC
RATING: NC-17 (language, sex)
WORDS: 4261
SUMMARY: This flat has seen every one of their firsts. Rory Gilmore gets married. Rory/OMC. Future Fic.
DISCLAIMER: I’m only borrowing the characters from Gilmore girls. They belong to others. No harm intended. Aristide, Eugénie, Annika, and Hattie belong to me.
AUTHOR NOTE: A little after the series finale, a fic idea hit me, which involved picking up Rory’s story at varying points in the future with the conceit that it was with different men and different futures, but then I sort of fell in love with one particular future and ended up focusing solely on it. Oh, Muse, never, ever change. Title comes from the song "All You Need is Love" by The Beatles. Thanks go tohalfway2home for the very quick beta.
Rory wakes up much the same way as she has for the last five years. She feels herself slide gently towards the middle of the bed as he slips back in for a post-run snuggle. His nose is cold as he presses it against the nape of her neck, arms around her middle like a vise. He is still in his running clothes and the winter chill clings to every part of him. She can feel him laugh as she squirms away, letting out an outraged squeal.
“Time to wake up,” is all he says as he sinks further beneath the covers. “Your family will be up any moment, and you know I cannot deal with your mother when she hasn’t had her coffee yet.”
She straddles him, yanking the covers back. “Husbands do not abuse their wives like this. It’s a rule.” She chews her lip, thoughtful. “I’m sure there’s a book.”
“You’ll find it then.”
“You shaved your beard,” she says. He looks even younger than usual. It’s hard to believe he’ll be thirty-six in a matter of weeks.
He shrugs. “I figure these are pictures that will be hanging around for awhile so I’d best look presentable.”
“Eugénie got to you.”
“Contrary to what you might think, my mother thought I looked quite handsome with my beard.”
Rory grins. “Did she get my mom in on it too, then?”
“And your grandmother, my sister, and my bloody sister-in-law for good measure.” He scrubs at his face, which only makes him that much more agitated. He liked the beard because it helped age him, and he’d been seeking out investors for his new restaurant. After the initial discomfort, she’d grown to like it too. It fit him.
“You can start growing it again while we’re in Greece.”
“You won’t mind?”
“Not at all.”
He smiles up at her, and she cups his cheeks. He is handsome but it isn’t the kind of handsome that’s noticeable on first glance. With a long, boyish face, a long, slightly off-center nose and thick bushy brows over the most expressive green eyes she’s ever seen, it’s when he smiles, or he really looks someone in the eyes they notice the sparkling mirth in them, or the infectious grin that seems to always be just on the edge of his mouth. That was what attracted her to him most, the warmth of his personality; it seemed to ooze from him.
He was the caterer at the Christmas party her first year with the bureau in Paris, when she was still so green, still playing wall-flower-Rory. Most of the night, she’d stood in the corner, ignoring the grumblings of her empty belly and drinking glass after glass of wine until the room was a-tilt and her ankles kept giving out under her. She’d been sneaking out, leaning against the wall when she glanced up to find an impossibly tall man offering her an entire silver platter full of crab puffs. “Eat or you’re going to throw up all that wine,” he ordered and his eyes were unbelievably kind and empathetic, which she really didn’t need.
To keep from crying, she popped one of the hor d’oeuvres into her mouth whole. “Good,” she mumbled, willing her face not to crumble even as she felt tears burn the backs of her eyes.
“No!” He shook his head, one sharp, quick movement, and took one of the puffs, carefully dipping it in a dark, thick glaze. It smelled sweet and vinegar-y. He held it out to her. “Like this.”
Blinking back the tears, she nodded and ate half a dozen before he helped her into the back where the wait staff was already starting the clean-up, ordering her, “Wait here,” in English, then barking at the staff in French. She stayed put; at the time she couldn’t fathom why she couldn’t seem to move. She just kept telling herself it was only until the room stopped spinning, and then she would get up and leave.
When she called her mother two days and many unanswered emails, text messages, voicemails, and a trip out into the countryside later, breathlessly explaining, “He’s a chef. You have to tell Sookie. And – and he’s French and English so he sort of grew up in both places, but England mainly…” For the first time in her life, she had allowed herself to be swept away and it doesn’t escape her notice how apropos it is that it actually happened in Paris.
(In true Lorelai fashion, her mother somehow managed to breeze past it, but then she was very heavily pregnant with the twins and most of their conversations those days revolved around, “When I actually get a look at my ankles, I remember why it’s a good thing I don’t want to.”)
His hands skim up her bare thighs. “Rory,” he whispers, and she knows by his tone. She nods, leaning forward ever so slightly, and he yanks down her underwear just enough to expose her cunt. He is easily removed from his jogging pants and boxers, and then he is inside her.
Exquisite, that is the word she searched for after their first time together. It wasn’t awkward, there was no accidentally pulled hair or banged heads; he had grabbed her the moment they entered the door of her apartment that first night, pinned her against the wall, door slammed shut with his foot, paused just long enough to roll on a condom, and she couldn’t seem to find purchase within herself. It was like she was falling and falling, until he grabbed her by the neck, his thumb grazing her throat, and her eyes locked with his. She hadn’t even known she’d wanted it to happen, but it felt inevitable as her fingers slipped into the soft swirls of hair at the nape of his neck and her leg wound around his waist.
She was surprised and more than a little disappointed to find him in the kitchen the next morning, making breakfast. Overachieving Rory Gilmore couldn’t even get a one night stand right. But then he gave her a grin and a plate full of eggs and cheese and a warmed croissant, and she was sweetly sore in all the right places. A fling – she could have a fling – and it was that much better that he could cook.
That night, he was waiting on her doorstep with a bag of groceries. “You have nothing in that fridge,” he admonished, his mouth moving from her earlobe to her throat. Over bread and braised chicken with almond risotto – it amazed her in much the way it always amazed her when she stopped long enough to observe Sookie how quickly he pulled it all together. She had watched his hands, the long, thin fingers, and remembered, not even blushing a little bit, the way those same fingers had opened her, pushed inside her the night before. She wanted him, craved him, and it was a hunger she hadn’t felt in a long time.
He never left, or rather, after their impromptu trip to his sister’s country house so he could introduce her to springtime in the French countryside (“The lavender, you must smell the lavender,” he had murmured against her belly, and when she protested, he pressed on, “She is a…how do you Americans put it? She is a workaholic.” He made the word melodic. “We would be doing her a favor to air out her house, fill it with the smells of flowers.” When he had just spent the better part of an hour going down on her, it was a very convincing argument), he moved his few belongings from the place he shared with three of his friends from university to hers.
This flat has seen every one of their firsts. The silly: the first time she’d given him head and how powerful she’d felt as he was left limp and boneless by her, by her mouth and tongue and she couldn’t remember as he pulled her up for a kiss why she had always hated that part of sex. The important: the first time she told Ari she loved him, and he looked at her as if she was crazy.
“About time,” he’d teased, but then he’d pulled her tight up against him, his breathing ragged and she knew it wasn’t just from his orgasm.
“I love you, Rory,” he’d whispered, all traces of humor gone from his voice.
Her contract was only for a year, with the option for two more. There was no guarantee that she wouldn’t have to return to America in a matter of months. Suddenly she was faced with the possibility of a future without Ari in it, and unlike the day Logan proposed and she had to really look at where she was going with her life, at what she wanted, the idea of leaving Ari behind terrified her, made her feel shiftless, belonging to no one and nothing, and it didn’t feel the least bit freeing.
It’s another first, that first terrible fight, which really sticks out as the turning point. It was the first time he’d ever yelled at her, or she had yelled at him, and it was liberating, like finally letting out the “I love yous.” She had just signed a three year extension on her contract, and they had hit the four month mark. A sense of permanence was starting to permeate their lives. She had met his family; he’d spoken to Lorelai more in the last few weeks than she had. In the part of her that still was the geeky, list-making teenager from Stars Hollow, it was like checking it off to happily ever after. This was just one step closer.
It’s so cliché, but she can’t remember the fight itself, just the way her heart felt like it was being yanked from her body right through her ribcage, beating and bruised. She couldn’t bring herself to go home so Annika dragged her out after work for a couple of shots of something hard and stinging. It was a reminder why she never went to bars alone with Annika anymore; it was the last thing her ego needed, what with Annika being the perfect embodiment of everything Swedish and blond – bubbly and intelligent and absolutely gorgeous. She finally begged off and wandered her way over to Hattie’s.
“We’ve never fought before,” she all but whimpered as Hattie walked her to the couch.
“And?” Hattie, in her annoyingly stiff upper lip, British way, stared Rory down from beneath her Dora-the-Explorer bangs, her pretty green eyes nonplussed. “This is a good thing, Rory.”
“I know, but then it wasn’t.” She sagged against the cushions. “At first I was kind of happy because it was about how he always leaves the towels on the floor, and then he made some comment about my work coming first…and before I know it I’m accusing him of always having one foot out the door, all because he’s hiding his smoking from me. And it wasn’t fun anymore.” She covered her head with both arms, feeling childish and she was starting to feel even woozier from whatever it was Annika forced her to drink. “This is what I get for making a relationship checklist.”
“You, my darling, are smashed.” Hattie disappeared into her bedroom and returned bearing blankets and a pillow that smelled like her, lime and wintergreen and cigarettes. “You’ve hit the nonsensical part of the evening so I think it’s best we get you to bed such as it were.”
The next morning, he opened the door before she could even get the key in the lock. She could smell him from where she stood. He reeked of smoke, and his gaze was heavy, dark smudges beneath his eyes. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t bring herself to cross the threshold.
He looked away first, his head dipping forward tiredly, hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean half the shit I said.” He met her eyes. “You know that right?”
She tugged a pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket, which she’d picked up on the way home, and tossed them at him. “I figured you were out.”
“Thanks.”
Stepping inside, she shut the door and shrugged out of her coat. He stood there, still barefoot; still wearing his black t-shirt and torn jeans, and his dark brown hair was sticking up in the back. She’d slept fitfully at best and it had nothing to do with Hattie’s tiny sofa. The man was frustrating as fuck to share a bed with and it had taken her weeks to get used to his snore and the way he would fling himself about, but he was hers.
Aside from sex, it was the only time he allowed himself to let go, which was kind of crazy to her, because he was the first man who made her completely at ease, utterly safe. Sometimes, she would imagine him like some weird statue, arms and legs folded up around him, as if he was trying to take up as little space as possible, and she wanted to tug on him, shake him loose. This is why, when she’s feeling especially honest and introspective, she knew she had to turn down Logan, why she and Jess were never going to be anything more than a high school fling no matter how much love was there. Perhaps it was a matter of timing and had she and Ari met earlier, or later, this would have ended badly or never started at all, but she likes to think it is more than that, that she and Ari have made it because of who they are and what they want – a combination of their whys and hows.
Turning to him, she shook her head. For the first time in her life words were failing her. She pushed him back into the apartment and they tumbled to the living room floor in a heap. She rearranged this piece and that piece of clothing until his cock was out – God, he was ridiculously easy, he was already hard, pressing up towards his belly – and she shifted above him, grabbing him gently with her hand. This was one of her favorite parts of joining, the way the tip of his penis felt against her vaginal opening before she couldn’t take the anticipation anymore and had to – hadtohadtohadto – slide down onto him.
Then she stopped and just sat back, sat there looking down at him, her hands on his chest. It was like the ultimate staring game, and she wasn’t sure what was lost or who won, but when he reached up, cupped the side of her neck, his eyes never leaving hers, and she started to rock her hips just so – it was like no sex or fucking or making love she’d ever experienced, not even with him. Like all the air had been taken from the room and pushed into her body and she was seeing things clearly for the first time possibly ever.
They have slipped into a rhythm over the last few years; they know each other’s bodies. She knows that a couple of gentle grazes at the spot just above his right hipbone, or along his back as it curves into his buttocks, will have him erect in moments. And it is this, him, just back from a run, all smell and wind and she is ready. When she finally captures his mouth, he tastes sour like milk and sharp like peppermint, and she runs her tongue along the edges of his teeth, the brail of his tongue. She arches against his hand, his thin fingers doing the familiar dance of rub-tap on her clit, and this is the joy of knowing, of well-practiced rhythm, as she comes, feeling him follow seconds after.
-
Lorelai designed her wedding dress. It’s short and flirty, with a skirt that whirls out in a perfect circle of white when she spins on the dance floor. Ari makes sure to twirl her as often as possible, and between the champagne, nibbles of food here and there, and all the twirling, she is sure she will end the night puking her guts up, but she can’t stop laughing.
Much like the day he proposed (she still has a few of the plain green M & Ms with “Marry Me” etched on them saved in the freezer), she keeps looking at her left hand, at the plain gold band they bought to go with the heirloom ruby and diamond engagement ring Ari gave her, but now she finds his hand, feels for the matching band on his ring finger. It’s real, they’re married, and he grins at her, pulls her close with both hands for another kiss.
“Ma femme.”
They have been together so long. She doesn’t expect anything will change. Neither of them is particularly religious. In fact Ari is, much to his mother’s horror, an Agnostic; marriage was more a pragmatic choice than a joining of souls. It simply made things easier, and after five years together, it just made sense, and it was the only way Rory could apply for French citizenship since she never planned to leave.
They don’t plan on children either. It just isn’t in the cards for them. Fortunately, his brother and sister have five between them so his mother has plenty of grandchildren to keep her busy (not that she’s completely given up hope, dropping hints now and again, “You see that baby? Right over there? I think that’s what yours and Ari’s would like, and isn’t she just gorgeous?”), and her mother and father have other children to pin those hopes on. She likes the idea of traveling together, and perhaps writing a book one day down the road, and forever playing guinea pig to his newest concoctions, but mostly, spending the rest of her days in Paris with him in their little apartment.
The romance of the ceremony, albeit small and as non-religious as one can get with her Protestant grandmother and his Catholic mother, was what was so surprising. Standing there with him, promising to love and to honor one another and forever, in front of everyone they loved; she would be a liar if she said it didn’t remind her why people had been doing it for centuries, for all the right and all the wrong reasons.
“It is fortuitous, Rory; all those stars,” Emily had promised, standing at the balcony doors as Lorelai finished curling Rory’s hair. After the heavy snows the day before, it was one of those perfectly clear winter night skies, and this far out into the country; it was as if everywhere one looked there were tiny pinpricks of light.
Rory blinked back tears, overcome with emotion for what felt like the millionth time that day. Her grandmother had never been thrilled with a lot of her or her mother’s life choices, but when it came down to it, she was first and foremost her grandmother, and where she couldn’t lend unconditional support to her own daughter, she could to her grandchild. It was Emily logic, but it was what it was. Clutching her grandmother’s hands, she stood and kissed both cheeks, trying to keep them both from further ruining their makeup.
Then Lorelai was behind her with her dress. “How’re you doing, kid?”
Blowing out a calming breath, Rory let her shoulders sag. “Am I supposed to feel like throwing up, have a strong desire to curl up in a ball and eat my own hair and like the prettiest girl in the whole world all at once?”
Her mother tucked a stray curl of Rory’s hair back into the loose half-knot. “That sounds about right.”
Rory grabbed her mom’s hand. “I love him so much it scares me sometimes and yet I can’t imagine my life without him.”
Lorelai smiled and there was a wistfulness to it that made Rory tear up again. “Then I think you’re ready.”
-
Ari is a first class fidgeter. He could never sit still as a child (he struggles even now), and it led to many detentions in school and more than his share of fights. He was always tapping his foot, or drumming his pen on his desk, forever moving. It wasn’t until his mother, at a complete loss, brought him into the kitchen (his sister, Aude, wanted nothing to do with cooking) to teach him the recipes handed down through her family that he finally found the balm to soothe his ticks. For the first time since she’d known him, he was completely still, his hands folded in front of him, and he was smiling at her, waiting for her.
As they walked back together, him swinging her hand with childlike exuberance, she laughed – more like guffawed because there was nothing remotely ladylike about the way it burst out of her, mouth wide, full-bodied – and he was laughing too. Their friends, the few they really cared about enough to invite (old: Zach and Lane with Kwan and Steve, so unbelievably grown up and tall [they tower over their mother]; and new: Annika and Hattie were the only people who kept her sane her first few months here when she was sure this was the biggest mistake of her life), and family joined in, and it was like music, almost to the point she couldn’t hear it, the familiar opening trumpets of The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love.” Surprised, she glanced at Ari, and he smiled even wider.
Once, when they had first started dating, he’d come home to find her sobbing when the band serenaded Peter and Juliet just after their “I dos” in Love Actually. She was homesick, having just returned from meeting Gracie and Harry for the first time (Rory wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her mother as happy or Luke as un-gruff); Ari was still almost unreal, he was so wonderful (he’d had two bouquets of daisies – one white, one yellow – sent to the house, completely surprising Rory and charming Lorelai). Not to mention the ten pounds she’d gained over the last month and a half. She’d made him promise on the spot never to tell anyone, but ever since, it had sort of become their song. Whenever they went out dancing anywhere, he would sing it in her ear as they would move, and it was all the more endearing because of his terrible voice.
The DJ puts it on as they return from changing into their traveling clothes and it is time to say goodbye (she has become so much more comfortable with physical affection since living in France, not that it was optional). It becomes a bit of a sing-a-long, especially since everyone has had more than their fair share of champagne. As she kisses and hugs, it’s snippets here and there: “…nothing you can sing that can’t be sung...nothing you can do but you can learn to be in time…all you need is love, LOVE! Love is all you NEED!”
As her gift to Rory, Ari’s mother gave her a vintage Chanel suit to wear for traveling, the very one she wore on own wedding day. Eugénie pulls her into a hug as soon as she spots her. Aude, like her brothers, took after Alastair’s side, and is a perfect six feet barefoot. Rory and Eugénie are more similar in build and are pale and the delicate pink wool brings out the undertones in their complexions. It was one of the first things they bonded over, their shunning of the sun. During a family trip to the Riviera the summer before last, they spent most of the time in hats and caftans and under the protective shade of the cabanas.
Ari calls to her, standing with Aubin and Luke, Gracie on one hip and Aude’s oldest daughter Daisy on the other, and Rory reluctantly releases her mother-in-law.
“You remind me of me on my wedding day,” Eugénie says, smiling, and Rory is reminded once again where Ari gets his smile and eyes from.
“I love it,” Rory says in lieu of goodbye, pressing close for another hug and kiss.
The birdseed tickles against her skin as she and Ari bolt for the car, a vintage Rolls Royce he, his brother and his father lovingly restored when Ari and Aubin were teenagers. (It became especially bittersweet when Alastair died Ari’s first year of university.) They slide across the cool leather, immediately turning back to the window to wave and watch as they pull away.
They’re off.
**
END
AUTHOR:
rubykatewritingPAIRING: Rory/OMC
RATING: NC-17 (language, sex)
WORDS: 4261
SUMMARY: This flat has seen every one of their firsts. Rory Gilmore gets married. Rory/OMC. Future Fic.
DISCLAIMER: I’m only borrowing the characters from Gilmore girls. They belong to others. No harm intended. Aristide, Eugénie, Annika, and Hattie belong to me.
AUTHOR NOTE: A little after the series finale, a fic idea hit me, which involved picking up Rory’s story at varying points in the future with the conceit that it was with different men and different futures, but then I sort of fell in love with one particular future and ended up focusing solely on it. Oh, Muse, never, ever change. Title comes from the song "All You Need is Love" by The Beatles. Thanks go to
halfway2home for the very quick beta.
Rory wakes up much the same way as she has for the last five years. She feels herself slide gently towards the middle of the bed as he slips back in for a post-run snuggle. His nose is cold as he presses it against the nape of her neck, arms around her middle like a vise. He is still in his running clothes and the winter chill clings to every part of him. She can feel him laugh as she squirms away, letting out an outraged squeal.
“Time to wake up,” is all he says as he sinks further beneath the covers. “Your family will be up any moment, and you know I cannot deal with your mother when she hasn’t had her coffee yet.”
She straddles him, yanking the covers back. “Husbands do not abuse their wives like this. It’s a rule.” She chews her lip, thoughtful. “I’m sure there’s a book.”
“You’ll find it then.”
“You shaved your beard,” she says. He looks even younger than usual. It’s hard to believe he’ll be thirty-six in a matter of weeks.
He shrugs. “I figure these are pictures that will be hanging around for awhile so I’d best look presentable.”
“Eugénie got to you.”
“Contrary to what you might think, my mother thought I looked quite handsome with my beard.”
Rory grins. “Did she get my mom in on it too, then?”
“And your grandmother, my sister, and my bloody sister-in-law for good measure.” He scrubs at his face, which only makes him that much more agitated. He liked the beard because it helped age him, and he’d been seeking out investors for his new restaurant. After the initial discomfort, she’d grown to like it too. It fit him.
“You can start growing it again while we’re in Greece.”
“You won’t mind?”
“Not at all.”
He smiles up at her, and she cups his cheeks. He is handsome but it isn’t the kind of handsome that’s noticeable on first glance. With a long, boyish face, a long, slightly off-center nose and thick bushy brows over the most expressive green eyes she’s ever seen, it’s when he smiles, or he really looks someone in the eyes they notice the sparkling mirth in them, or the infectious grin that seems to always be just on the edge of his mouth. That was what attracted her to him most, the warmth of his personality; it seemed to ooze from him.
He was the caterer at the Christmas party her first year with the bureau in Paris, when she was still so green, still playing wall-flower-Rory. Most of the night, she’d stood in the corner, ignoring the grumblings of her empty belly and drinking glass after glass of wine until the room was a-tilt and her ankles kept giving out under her. She’d been sneaking out, leaning against the wall when she glanced up to find an impossibly tall man offering her an entire silver platter full of crab puffs. “Eat or you’re going to throw up all that wine,” he ordered and his eyes were unbelievably kind and empathetic, which she really didn’t need.
To keep from crying, she popped one of the hor d’oeuvres into her mouth whole. “Good,” she mumbled, willing her face not to crumble even as she felt tears burn the backs of her eyes.
“No!” He shook his head, one sharp, quick movement, and took one of the puffs, carefully dipping it in a dark, thick glaze. It smelled sweet and vinegar-y. He held it out to her. “Like this.”
Blinking back the tears, she nodded and ate half a dozen before he helped her into the back where the wait staff was already starting the clean-up, ordering her, “Wait here,” in English, then barking at the staff in French. She stayed put; at the time she couldn’t fathom why she couldn’t seem to move. She just kept telling herself it was only until the room stopped spinning, and then she would get up and leave.
When she called her mother two days and many unanswered emails, text messages, voicemails, and a trip out into the countryside later, breathlessly explaining, “He’s a chef. You have to tell Sookie. And – and he’s French and English so he sort of grew up in both places, but England mainly…” For the first time in her life, she had allowed herself to be swept away and it doesn’t escape her notice how apropos it is that it actually happened in Paris.
(In true Lorelai fashion, her mother somehow managed to breeze past it, but then she was very heavily pregnant with the twins and most of their conversations those days revolved around, “When I actually get a look at my ankles, I remember why it’s a good thing I don’t want to.”)
His hands skim up her bare thighs. “Rory,” he whispers, and she knows by his tone. She nods, leaning forward ever so slightly, and he yanks down her underwear just enough to expose her cunt. He is easily removed from his jogging pants and boxers, and then he is inside her.
Exquisite, that is the word she searched for after their first time together. It wasn’t awkward, there was no accidentally pulled hair or banged heads; he had grabbed her the moment they entered the door of her apartment that first night, pinned her against the wall, door slammed shut with his foot, paused just long enough to roll on a condom, and she couldn’t seem to find purchase within herself. It was like she was falling and falling, until he grabbed her by the neck, his thumb grazing her throat, and her eyes locked with his. She hadn’t even known she’d wanted it to happen, but it felt inevitable as her fingers slipped into the soft swirls of hair at the nape of his neck and her leg wound around his waist.
She was surprised and more than a little disappointed to find him in the kitchen the next morning, making breakfast. Overachieving Rory Gilmore couldn’t even get a one night stand right. But then he gave her a grin and a plate full of eggs and cheese and a warmed croissant, and she was sweetly sore in all the right places. A fling – she could have a fling – and it was that much better that he could cook.
That night, he was waiting on her doorstep with a bag of groceries. “You have nothing in that fridge,” he admonished, his mouth moving from her earlobe to her throat. Over bread and braised chicken with almond risotto – it amazed her in much the way it always amazed her when she stopped long enough to observe Sookie how quickly he pulled it all together. She had watched his hands, the long, thin fingers, and remembered, not even blushing a little bit, the way those same fingers had opened her, pushed inside her the night before. She wanted him, craved him, and it was a hunger she hadn’t felt in a long time.
He never left, or rather, after their impromptu trip to his sister’s country house so he could introduce her to springtime in the French countryside (“The lavender, you must smell the lavender,” he had murmured against her belly, and when she protested, he pressed on, “She is a…how do you Americans put it? She is a workaholic.” He made the word melodic. “We would be doing her a favor to air out her house, fill it with the smells of flowers.” When he had just spent the better part of an hour going down on her, it was a very convincing argument), he moved his few belongings from the place he shared with three of his friends from university to hers.
This flat has seen every one of their firsts. The silly: the first time she’d given him head and how powerful she’d felt as he was left limp and boneless by her, by her mouth and tongue and she couldn’t remember as he pulled her up for a kiss why she had always hated that part of sex. The important: the first time she told Ari she loved him, and he looked at her as if she was crazy.
“About time,” he’d teased, but then he’d pulled her tight up against him, his breathing ragged and she knew it wasn’t just from his orgasm.
“I love you, Rory,” he’d whispered, all traces of humor gone from his voice.
Her contract was only for a year, with the option for two more. There was no guarantee that she wouldn’t have to return to America in a matter of months. Suddenly she was faced with the possibility of a future without Ari in it, and unlike the day Logan proposed and she had to really look at where she was going with her life, at what she wanted, the idea of leaving Ari behind terrified her, made her feel shiftless, belonging to no one and nothing, and it didn’t feel the least bit freeing.
It’s another first, that first terrible fight, which really sticks out as the turning point. It was the first time he’d ever yelled at her, or she had yelled at him, and it was liberating, like finally letting out the “I love yous.” She had just signed a three year extension on her contract, and they had hit the four month mark. A sense of permanence was starting to permeate their lives. She had met his family; he’d spoken to Lorelai more in the last few weeks than she had. In the part of her that still was the geeky, list-making teenager from Stars Hollow, it was like checking it off to happily ever after. This was just one step closer.
It’s so cliché, but she can’t remember the fight itself, just the way her heart felt like it was being yanked from her body right through her ribcage, beating and bruised. She couldn’t bring herself to go home so Annika dragged her out after work for a couple of shots of something hard and stinging. It was a reminder why she never went to bars alone with Annika anymore; it was the last thing her ego needed, what with Annika being the perfect embodiment of everything Swedish and blond – bubbly and intelligent and absolutely gorgeous. She finally begged off and wandered her way over to Hattie’s.
“We’ve never fought before,” she all but whimpered as Hattie walked her to the couch.
“And?” Hattie, in her annoyingly stiff upper lip, British way, stared Rory down from beneath her Dora-the-Explorer bangs, her pretty green eyes nonplussed. “This is a good thing, Rory.”
“I know, but then it wasn’t.” She sagged against the cushions. “At first I was kind of happy because it was about how he always leaves the towels on the floor, and then he made some comment about my work coming first…and before I know it I’m accusing him of always having one foot out the door, all because he’s hiding his smoking from me. And it wasn’t fun anymore.” She covered her head with both arms, feeling childish and she was starting to feel even woozier from whatever it was Annika forced her to drink. “This is what I get for making a relationship checklist.”
“You, my darling, are smashed.” Hattie disappeared into her bedroom and returned bearing blankets and a pillow that smelled like her, lime and wintergreen and cigarettes. “You’ve hit the nonsensical part of the evening so I think it’s best we get you to bed such as it were.”
The next morning, he opened the door before she could even get the key in the lock. She could smell him from where she stood. He reeked of smoke, and his gaze was heavy, dark smudges beneath his eyes. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t bring herself to cross the threshold.
He looked away first, his head dipping forward tiredly, hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean half the shit I said.” He met her eyes. “You know that right?”
She tugged a pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket, which she’d picked up on the way home, and tossed them at him. “I figured you were out.”
“Thanks.”
Stepping inside, she shut the door and shrugged out of her coat. He stood there, still barefoot; still wearing his black t-shirt and torn jeans, and his dark brown hair was sticking up in the back. She’d slept fitfully at best and it had nothing to do with Hattie’s tiny sofa. The man was frustrating as fuck to share a bed with and it had taken her weeks to get used to his snore and the way he would fling himself about, but he was hers.
Aside from sex, it was the only time he allowed himself to let go, which was kind of crazy to her, because he was the first man who made her completely at ease, utterly safe. Sometimes, she would imagine him like some weird statue, arms and legs folded up around him, as if he was trying to take up as little space as possible, and she wanted to tug on him, shake him loose. This is why, when she’s feeling especially honest and introspective, she knew she had to turn down Logan, why she and Jess were never going to be anything more than a high school fling no matter how much love was there. Perhaps it was a matter of timing and had she and Ari met earlier, or later, this would have ended badly or never started at all, but she likes to think it is more than that, that she and Ari have made it because of who they are and what they want – a combination of their whys and hows.
Turning to him, she shook her head. For the first time in her life words were failing her. She pushed him back into the apartment and they tumbled to the living room floor in a heap. She rearranged this piece and that piece of clothing until his cock was out – God, he was ridiculously easy, he was already hard, pressing up towards his belly – and she shifted above him, grabbing him gently with her hand. This was one of her favorite parts of joining, the way the tip of his penis felt against her vaginal opening before she couldn’t take the anticipation anymore and had to – hadtohadtohadto – slide down onto him.
Then she stopped and just sat back, sat there looking down at him, her hands on his chest. It was like the ultimate staring game, and she wasn’t sure what was lost or who won, but when he reached up, cupped the side of her neck, his eyes never leaving hers, and she started to rock her hips just so – it was like no sex or fucking or making love she’d ever experienced, not even with him. Like all the air had been taken from the room and pushed into her body and she was seeing things clearly for the first time possibly ever.
They have slipped into a rhythm over the last few years; they know each other’s bodies. She knows that a couple of gentle grazes at the spot just above his right hipbone, or along his back as it curves into his buttocks, will have him erect in moments. And it is this, him, just back from a run, all smell and wind and she is ready. When she finally captures his mouth, he tastes sour like milk and sharp like peppermint, and she runs her tongue along the edges of his teeth, the brail of his tongue. She arches against his hand, his thin fingers doing the familiar dance of rub-tap on her clit, and this is the joy of knowing, of well-practiced rhythm, as she comes, feeling him follow seconds after.
-
Lorelai designed her wedding dress. It’s short and flirty, with a skirt that whirls out in a perfect circle of white when she spins on the dance floor. Ari makes sure to twirl her as often as possible, and between the champagne, nibbles of food here and there, and all the twirling, she is sure she will end the night puking her guts up, but she can’t stop laughing.
Much like the day he proposed (she still has a few of the plain green M & Ms with “Marry Me” etched on them saved in the freezer), she keeps looking at her left hand, at the plain gold band they bought to go with the heirloom ruby and diamond engagement ring Ari gave her, but now she finds his hand, feels for the matching band on his ring finger. It’s real, they’re married, and he grins at her, pulls her close with both hands for another kiss.
“Ma femme.”
They have been together so long. She doesn’t expect anything will change. Neither of them is particularly religious. In fact Ari is, much to his mother’s horror, an Agnostic; marriage was more a pragmatic choice than a joining of souls. It simply made things easier, and after five years together, it just made sense, and it was the only way Rory could apply for French citizenship since she never planned to leave.
They don’t plan on children either. It just isn’t in the cards for them. Fortunately, his brother and sister have five between them so his mother has plenty of grandchildren to keep her busy (not that she’s completely given up hope, dropping hints now and again, “You see that baby? Right over there? I think that’s what yours and Ari’s would like, and isn’t she just gorgeous?”), and her mother and father have other children to pin those hopes on. She likes the idea of traveling together, and perhaps writing a book one day down the road, and forever playing guinea pig to his newest concoctions, but mostly, spending the rest of her days in Paris with him in their little apartment.
The romance of the ceremony, albeit small and as non-religious as one can get with her Protestant grandmother and his Catholic mother, was what was so surprising. Standing there with him, promising to love and to honor one another and forever, in front of everyone they loved; she would be a liar if she said it didn’t remind her why people had been doing it for centuries, for all the right and all the wrong reasons.
“It is fortuitous, Rory; all those stars,” Emily had promised, standing at the balcony doors as Lorelai finished curling Rory’s hair. After the heavy snows the day before, it was one of those perfectly clear winter night skies, and this far out into the country; it was as if everywhere one looked there were tiny pinpricks of light.
Rory blinked back tears, overcome with emotion for what felt like the millionth time that day. Her grandmother had never been thrilled with a lot of her or her mother’s life choices, but when it came down to it, she was first and foremost her grandmother, and where she couldn’t lend unconditional support to her own daughter, she could to her grandchild. It was Emily logic, but it was what it was. Clutching her grandmother’s hands, she stood and kissed both cheeks, trying to keep them both from further ruining their makeup.
Then Lorelai was behind her with her dress. “How’re you doing, kid?”
Blowing out a calming breath, Rory let her shoulders sag. “Am I supposed to feel like throwing up, have a strong desire to curl up in a ball and eat my own hair and like the prettiest girl in the whole world all at once?”
Her mother tucked a stray curl of Rory’s hair back into the loose half-knot. “That sounds about right.”
Rory grabbed her mom’s hand. “I love him so much it scares me sometimes and yet I can’t imagine my life without him.”
Lorelai smiled and there was a wistfulness to it that made Rory tear up again. “Then I think you’re ready.”
-
Ari is a first class fidgeter. He could never sit still as a child (he struggles even now), and it led to many detentions in school and more than his share of fights. He was always tapping his foot, or drumming his pen on his desk, forever moving. It wasn’t until his mother, at a complete loss, brought him into the kitchen (his sister, Aude, wanted nothing to do with cooking) to teach him the recipes handed down through her family that he finally found the balm to soothe his ticks. For the first time since she’d known him, he was completely still, his hands folded in front of him, and he was smiling at her, waiting for her.
As they walked back together, him swinging her hand with childlike exuberance, she laughed – more like guffawed because there was nothing remotely ladylike about the way it burst out of her, mouth wide, full-bodied – and he was laughing too. Their friends, the few they really cared about enough to invite (old: Zach and Lane with Kwan and Steve, so unbelievably grown up and tall [they tower over their mother]; and new: Annika and Hattie were the only people who kept her sane her first few months here when she was sure this was the biggest mistake of her life), and family joined in, and it was like music, almost to the point she couldn’t hear it, the familiar opening trumpets of The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love.” Surprised, she glanced at Ari, and he smiled even wider.
Once, when they had first started dating, he’d come home to find her sobbing when the band serenaded Peter and Juliet just after their “I dos” in Love Actually. She was homesick, having just returned from meeting Gracie and Harry for the first time (Rory wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her mother as happy or Luke as un-gruff); Ari was still almost unreal, he was so wonderful (he’d had two bouquets of daisies – one white, one yellow – sent to the house, completely surprising Rory and charming Lorelai). Not to mention the ten pounds she’d gained over the last month and a half. She’d made him promise on the spot never to tell anyone, but ever since, it had sort of become their song. Whenever they went out dancing anywhere, he would sing it in her ear as they would move, and it was all the more endearing because of his terrible voice.
The DJ puts it on as they return from changing into their traveling clothes and it is time to say goodbye (she has become so much more comfortable with physical affection since living in France, not that it was optional). It becomes a bit of a sing-a-long, especially since everyone has had more than their fair share of champagne. As she kisses and hugs, it’s snippets here and there: “…nothing you can sing that can’t be sung...nothing you can do but you can learn to be in time…all you need is love, LOVE! Love is all you NEED!”
As her gift to Rory, Ari’s mother gave her a vintage Chanel suit to wear for traveling, the very one she wore on own wedding day. Eugénie pulls her into a hug as soon as she spots her. Aude, like her brothers, took after Alastair’s side, and is a perfect six feet barefoot. Rory and Eugénie are more similar in build and are pale and the delicate pink wool brings out the undertones in their complexions. It was one of the first things they bonded over, their shunning of the sun. During a family trip to the Riviera the summer before last, they spent most of the time in hats and caftans and under the protective shade of the cabanas.
Ari calls to her, standing with Aubin and Luke, Gracie on one hip and Aude’s oldest daughter Daisy on the other, and Rory reluctantly releases her mother-in-law.
“You remind me of me on my wedding day,” Eugénie says, smiling, and Rory is reminded once again where Ari gets his smile and eyes from.
“I love it,” Rory says in lieu of goodbye, pressing close for another hug and kiss.
The birdseed tickles against her skin as she and Ari bolt for the car, a vintage Rolls Royce he, his brother and his father lovingly restored when Ari and Aubin were teenagers. (It became especially bittersweet when Alastair died Ari’s first year of university.) They slide across the cool leather, immediately turning back to the window to wave and watch as they pull away.
They’re off.
**
