Him and Her

 

Author: Connecticut Junkie ([email protected])

 

Title: Him and Her

 

Summary: Six years from now, Rory and Luke learn that regret is a heavy burden; one that only gets heavier when you share it.

(This is an experimental, ‘what if’/future fic, brought about by the question: What extremes would it take to get Luke and Rory in bed together? Can it be done, and still be believable?)

Note: Luke/Lorelai and Rory/Jess sentiments. This is *not* a Luke and Rory romance. I can’t emphasize that enough. [Because *that* would be sick. ;) ]

Rating: NC-17

Spoilers: Through the end of Season 2.

 

Distribution: Let me know, I’ll say yes. I’m easy like that.

 

*                                              *                                                          *

 

He hadn’t come to her graduation. Even though she hadn’t seen him in years, even though she’d had other boyfriends since; she still had a dream in her head, where she’d turn to the crowd after getting her degree and he’d be there in the back, standing silently. Giving her just the slightest of smiles.It was silly, the way dreams often were.

 

Familiarity would soothe the anguish, she’d thought, so she’d driven back to Stars Hollow with her mom and dad. As she walked the streets, the pain had only increased as the memories inundated her.

 

She didn’t even know where he was. His life had become a Kerouac novel, only she couldn’t read it. Her walk led her to the diner,a habit she doubted would ever be broken.

 

Luke was alone; it was late.

 

“I heard you graduated,” he greeted. Rory nodded. “Congratulations,” he said, and he wanted to sound enthusiastic, but he was still Luke.

 

“Thanks.” She took a seat at the counter and he handed her coffee.

 

Luke took in the woman she’d become, having trouble believing this was the same six year old who used to ask for coffee in her milk so she could be like her mother.

 

It hurt him just then, to see just how alike she had become; to assess, for the millionth time, just how much he’d lost. Almost six years had passed, but he was no closer to getting over it.

 

Christopher’s girlfriend had miscarried in the early summer; by the year’s end, he and Lorelai were married. The ‘if-only’ questions plagued Luke’s mind, as much now as they had then.

 

If only he’d been nicer to her after their fight…

 

If only he’d had the courage to say something…

 

It didn’t matter anymore. Luke hadn’t gone to the wedding.

 

“Did you see your brother?” he asked Rory. Normal conversation was safer than his thoughts. “He’s getting big.”

 

Rory nodded. Maddox was almost four. During her college years, she’d visited as often as she could, but the farther she progressed in her studies, the less free time she’d had. Her family had only been seen in brief intervals. Every time she’d seen her brother, he’d grown.

 

“Mom says he’s a little demon. That she should have expected it considering how well behaved I was.”

 

Luke smiled just a little, and it was almost genuine. “Got any plans? The future, and stuff…”

 

Rory shrugged and returned with her own ghost of a smile. “I always have plans.” The empty coffee mug made a clinking noise as she set it on the counter.

 

Luke nodded. Of course. This was still Rory, after all. “More coffee?”

 

“Got anything stronger?” she asked. It surprised him. This was Rory.

 

But she was twenty-two now. “Upstairs,” he told her, and she got off the stool to lock the door, flipping the sign to ‘closed.’

 

He watched her move, seeing the echoes of the woman he loved and had lost with her every motion. He told himself to stop it.

 

She went up the stairs. “Coming?” she called down. He followed, and they entered his apartment. As he went to the kitchen, Rory looked around for any signs.

 

A nearly full bottle of scotch was in Luke’s hand when he returned; he caught her searching gaze.

 

“I don’t have any of his stuff anymore.”

 

Rory looked like she would deny it, but her face gave way to resignation. “It’s been a long time since I heard from him.”

 

“Me too,” Luke admitted. “He likes to write, but not postcards. That’s irony for you.”

 

“I wonder where he is, from time to time,” she confessed.

 

Luke nodded. “He’s okay,” he lamely assured her.

 

Rory removed the bottle from his hand and took a deep swig, coughing and choking until the burning subsided.

 

“Careful,” was the only thing he said, before taking the bottle from her and drinking even deeper himself.

 

Over the years, he’d started drinking more frequently, and in heavier volume. It ran in his family, but it was something he’d never been part of.

 

Regret was a powerful emotion. It changed people.

 

Rory sat on the couch, already feeling the effect of the scotch. He’d spent ten hours on his feet; he joined her. The shift in the cushions broke her from her thoughts, and she fixed her blue eyes on him. He felt trapped, exposed, naked.

 

“You loved her, and you let her get away,”

 

There wasn’t a need to ask who ‘her’ was, just like there hadn’t been a need to put a name to the ‘him.’

 

Luke took another swig from the bottle. When he lowered it, her eyes were still on him.

What the hell did he have left to lose?

 

“Yeah,” he admitted for the first time.

 

He barely noticed when she took the bottle from him. “You never told her?” It sounded like an accusation.

 

“No.” When she finished her drink, he took it back, gulping down the alcohol. How was he supposed to handle this? The feelings, the situation, the whole goddamn package. He wished Rory would stop looking at him like that. Like he was something to pity.Luke didn’t want pity; he had no use for it.

 

Self-deprecation, on the other hand… That he used on a daily basis. He’d been stupid, and petty, and bitter. Every day he wondered if he hadn’t shut her out, hadn’t held onto his ridiculous grudge for so long, would it have made a difference?

 

Fuck it. It didn’t matter now. Another swallow of alcohol, another burning in his chest. What he used to want no longer mattered. He wasn’t the guy whose ring she wore and whose son she had. She’d been everything to him, and he was nothing to her. They were hardly even friends now.

 

His fault, of course, and because it was a hole he’d dug with his own hands, he had no one to blame but himself. So he’d buried his feelings there, made that hole a grave. The torch he’d borne was dead.

 

But he was haunted.

 

Rory shook her head, sorrowful and reprimanding at the same time, attuned to her own personal ghost. “I cared about what everyone else said, thought, felt. He made me happy, but they all said he wasn’t good enough. I didn’t listen to my own feelings. Perfect daughter, perfect student, but I made such a huge mistake letting go of him.” Her words had a slurred edge, liquor and anger doing their part.

 

They let the silence speak for a long time, quietly passing the bottle back and forth until it was empty.

 

Rory dropped it to the floor, where it rolled under the couch, and the noise it made broke Luke from his reverie. He saw that there were tears silently falling down her cheeks.

He felt like he should do something, so he tentatively put a hand out, but didn’t touch her. It hovered over her shoulder for a few seconds before he finally gave in and patted her, somewhat awkwardly. A single sob broke out.

 

“It’s not the same,” Rory confessed, her voice quavering. “She’s still my mom, but it’s not me and her anymore. That’s why I picked Yale, because I was afraid of going too far away and losing her.” Rory snorted, and brushed the tears angrily from her eyes with her sleeve. “A lot of good that did me. I should have just gone to Harvard like I’d always wanted.”

 

For the first time she noticed the heavy weight on her shoulder, and told the tears to go away as she turned closer to Luke. He didn’t like crybabies. But she was drunk, and not coordinated, and her head was all kinds of dizzy. A distance was misjudged, and she ended up curled against him.

 

This isn’t good, a tiny, sober part of his mind told him. But their limbs were all tangled with their bodies, his arms wrapped around her waist and hers wrapped around chest, and it was confusing. He tried to move his arm, but it wasn’t coordinating. Why had he drunk so much?

 

Luke’s embrace was familiar. The arms of a ghost; the arms that held her in her memories. She thought of nights at the bridge, sitting with him, leaning back against his chest and resting her head on his shoulder while they talked about books or nothing at all. She thought of his face, so innocent in sleep while she woke up to go to her god awful seven a.m. class in the spring semester of her freshman year. She thought of the last time she’d hugged him, when she knew it was goodbye before he did.

 

Her hair was soft under Luke’s fingers, as he tried to comfort her with touch because words just weren’t his thing. Her head turned, his head turned, and it was an accident, neither party more at fault than the other. Her lips were soft and salty; her tongue tasted like scotch.

 

She was tall, he noticed when they stood; not quite as tall as her mother, but still a good fit for him. They blindly headed to his room with a clumsy stagger created by the alcohol and further enhanced by her attempts at pulling off his shirt. The flannel was easy, it wasn’t even buttoned, but the t-shirt was harder. Her hands clawed at the hem, her nails raking his stomach and lower back, until it obeyed her wishes and up it went, over his arms and head, the baseball hat- the old, green one- hitting the floor with it.

 

The nice blouse she’d worn to graduation dinner with her grandparents- if they could only see her now, a snarkyvoice in her mind said- was trampled under their feet as they made their way to his small bed.

 

They fell into it, both grateful that the room was spinning to a lesser extent now that they weren’t moving. His hands were at her feet, removing the strappy sandals, sliding up over her calves and thighs. The touch felt funny, the tiny holes in the pantyhose letting her feel him without really feeling him. Her knee length skirt was now residing at her waist, the silk bunching and wrinkling. They had dry cleaners, what did she care.

 

It was a simple zipper; maybe if she’d gone with the tab-waist button skirt she originally intended to wear, it would have been more of an obstacle, and they’d have come to their senses in time. But she hadn’t. And so this skirt was gone in a second, resigned to the floor and forgotten, lonely but not for long as her underwear and pantyhose soon joined it.

 

His mouth was hot; she could feel the burn even through the lace of her bra. Her fingers ran through his hair and her eyes closed; the lengths were so similar, the ends curling in a way she would always remember. One hand left its tactile exploration to help him in getting the stupid bra out of the way.

 

Fully naked, she tugged his hair with the other hand, encouraging him to move up. The hair on his chest was coarse, and there was more of it. His chest was broader; her hand didn’t linger there, instead sliding down to his stomach. Smoother now, just a trail of hair leading down past the waist of his jeans, the muscles clenching under her touch. Hard, defined, but covered with a thin blanket of middle-age softness. He had been like a washboard; the only time Rory ever loved the concept of laundry.

 

Her eyes were still closed, and she made her way through touch, finding the metal button and zipper and making quick work of them. When his lips pressed against hers, she didn’t see it coming, and she arched against him in surprise. His erection was hot and heavy in her hand; a few flicks of her fingers and he was twitching. She pulled down on the jeans, her foot sliding up to help with the process. He used to joke that she was like a monkey.

 

Their kiss was still going, sloppy with inebriation and deep with desperation. His fingers raked over her breasts; they were slightly bigger than hers but he really had no expertise. Just years of imagination and observation.She hissed when he brushed his thumbs over her nipples, and thrust her hips up. She could feel his hardness against her hip, so close. If only the damn room would stop spinning, she’d be able to get it where it belonged. Her legs spread, and if he’d had any reservations left, they would have been useless against her demanding hand. She could feel his pulse against her palm as she slid her fingers over his length, guiding him into her.

 

He slid into her easily, and she bit his lip at the feeling. She may have broken his skin. Her tongue soothed his wound, and she squeezed her inner muscles against him. He was bigger.

 

She was slick and hot, wet and tight, and it had been a while for him. He thrust hard and she clung to him, her long legs wrapping around him and her hips matching his own. As her excitement waxed and her cognizance waned, she confused him more and more with a man whose weight wasn’t quite as heavy. Remembering the way she’d cradled him between her legs, the smell of their sweat and their love and the feeling of rightness. Remembering a year’s worth of heavy studying and stress stripped away by this act, under stars that looked no different in New Haven than at home.

 

They kissed the whole time. It kept their eyes closed.

 

Her orgasm caught her unaware, lost in memory as she was, and she broke the kiss to cry out softly. When he followed her over the edge, she had a moment of panic before she remembered that yes, she had taken her pill that day, and the day before, and the day before that. She had always been responsible. That was past tense, now.

 

His weight left her, and Rory felt the emptiness return. She rolled on her side and leaned her head on his chest. “Hold me,” she quietly asked.

 

He sighed, his breath stirring her hair, then complied, his arm brushing over her shoulder, his hand playing with the ends of her hair.

 

“This…” he stared, but couldn’t find the words. He had to say them, though, so he took a few seconds and tried again. “This is one of those things that seems like a good idea when you’re lonely and drunk, but tomorrow you’re gonnaregret it.”

 

“I know,” Rory said, feeling the tears already burning her eyes.

 

Luke sighed. Wasn’t he supposed to be the taciturn one? “What are we gonna do?”

 

“Deal with it tomorrow,” she suggested, resolve in her voice. “For tonight, let’s just pretend that everything is okay.”

 

Luke wanted to argue that none of this was okay, but he was still not sober, and in the dark her light brown hair looked a darker brunette. Pretend. He could do that.

 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. To her, to the woman he saw in his mind. To anyone who might judge him.

 

In the quiet night, his whisper sounded like another voice, one unheard in years but still familiar. She held his hand, closing her eyes. “Me too.”

 

They soon succumbed to sleep, exhausted by their actions, lulled by the liquor, and haunted by their ghosts.

 

-the end-

 

Author’s note: This is one of those ideas that pop in your head, and won’t let you sleep until at six a.m., you end up scribbling it down in an old notebook full of forgotten math problems with a Sharpie marker because you can’t find a pen. So besides being disturbed, I may have been a little high.

 

I don’t expect many people to like this, but at least the monkey’s off my back and we’re both happy. He gets his freedom, and I’m no longer plagued by the notion of depressing, Luke/Rory sex.

 

Bad monkey!

 

P.S. Celine Dion married her manager who’d known her since she was like, 11. That disturbed me vaguely when I watched it on VH-1 at three in the morning. Let’s all blame those two!