Fic: Toodles (III/V)
Fic: Toodles
Fandom: Gilmore Girls
Summary: A Saturday morning hostage situation from finish to start.
A\N: Surrender is best
III.
She has to be stopped.
"-Then in 1939, the Nazis occupied Poland, declaring it a state of Nazi Germany and daring the French and British armies to challenge its ever-growing authority on the European Continent…Jess? Hello?"
Saturdays exist for pissing off Luke, avoiding labor and sticking his head out of the downstairs bathroom window breaking in a copy of Dr. Sax over a new pack of unfiltered Marlboro Lights. This? This is a gateway drug. First, he's silently condoning crack of dawn School House Rocks reenactments, next thing you know they're combing each others hair and sharing a malted shake and he's carrying her books while riding a twin bike to the Saturday night sock hop.
And then, then he's Lurch.
"Look, if you learned by absorption slamming your head against the book would be really helpful but as it is I think it's just giving you brain damage…which you really can't afford right now."
If he lets it slide she's gonna think this behavior is completely acceptable. Like if she calls him up on some random Thursday night, he'll be right over with Boggle, and Scattergories and Sophie's Choice. They'll be BFFs. Eating hot dogs, playing Twister, going to the mall in Hartford to try on earrings and look at boys. Reading Cosmo quizzes over iced lattes, singing along to the GoGos on day trips to Gramma's house with Lorelai Sr. doing William Shatner impressions at the wheel. His Friday nights will consist of: "Hey Jess, could you pass the cucumber-almond face cream?" "Sure thing Ror!" Awesome!
"Okay, fine I know you don't care about European History, but this stuff is really interesting and if you'd at least pretend to pay attention it might be kind of fun-"
Hell.
No.
"…I mean, Nazis aren't fun, obviously. They killed people, like lots of-"
The portrait of Faulkner's staring at him. Judging him. Silently. The windows are sealed, the doors are locked, every thing smells like sharpened pencils. He glances down at the vending machine cookies and Goldfish crackers strewn across the massacre of flowcharts and story webs lining the table like plague victims, and snorts. Like Macadamia nuts are going to make him forget that this is basically a hostage situation. What he's suddenly gonna get Stockholm's Syndrome and be totally okay with being trapped in an eight-by-ten room and read the history of the Western Hemisphere against his will?
"-Fun's not the right word. Hitler? Not a role model, yeah okay buddy your paintings sucked how about getting a new hobby… or there's always medical treatment. Maladjusted sociopath: party of one-"
What's next Chinese water torture? Are they gonna act out Apocalypse Now? (She'll make a great Kurtz, just terrific.)
"-Made the Communists look like Salvation Army workers. Stalin was a kitten compared to Hitler, a little tabby kitten who wanted to destroy the Russian aristocracy."
It's official. She is completely incapable of shutting up. For like, a second. What is she gonna die if she stops talking? Does she have a disease? Is this a low-budget, straight-to-video, way less climatic Speed sequel: he's Keanu Reeves, she's Sandra Bullock and instead of a bombed out bus the world's gonna explode if she inhales?
"Jess."
She should see a therapist. Or a hypnotist. Get that family friendly Turrets surgically removed.
"Jess."
What the hell is David Copperfield doing now?
"Jess!"
Its not impudence (honest) it's his face. The default setting just happens to be the expression of a smug jackass.
"You have no idea what I just said do you?" She props her chin against her hand.
A dazed sense of day old mania gives him no choice but to raise his eyebrows.
"Oh God you're wearing the Magoo face! She cries, you weren't listening to any of that, I just chopped the entire history of the Second World War into tiny, delectable morsels that would make Spark Notes weep and you're sleeping with your eyes open!"
He registers dimly that this is some sort of sore point then remembers he's being unlawfully detained.
(The eyebrows go higher.)
"I stayed up all night making you worksheets and puzzles and a limited edition, Jess-friendly study guide! Did you not see the chart with the Beats on it?"
Christ its angry noble filibuster time. Like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington if Jimmy Stewart were female, a perfectionist and invading his personal space. Jess blinks and feels on an intuitive level the reference to the elder Lorelai right about-
"-I could've been helping my mom organize the take-out drawer, which she begged me to do through the door of my room, finally resorting to screeching many a fine Michael Bolton number till I promised her I'd do it later. I could've been hanging out with Lane or at the movies with Dean or preventing forest fires or doing my own homework-"
His system intakes the Frankenstein bit (curious and curiouser) but he's far too disgusted\intrigued to make the effort of speech.
"-but no, like an idiot, I went to my room and put on some Smiths-because for some reason Morrissey's whining is really relaxing to study too-and sat around thinking of ways to make this stuff not seem like torture to you."
She shouldn't play poker. At least not for money, her whole face is a tell.
"I thought "okay, its Jess, he's really, really, smart. He could do anything he wants. He eats books like they're a life source. He hates school. And learning. And practically everything related to school and learning. His teachers just aren't making it interesting enough for him; he needs something else to keep him focused. I don't know, maybe someone would really have to get to know him and shape the curriculum around him."
"I made all these graphs and charts and all this alternative stuff because I thought it would get you interested. I know Stars Hollow High is small but the teachers still can't see everyone all the time. I thought you needed individual attention, like if you just had all this stuff that was specially made for you it would make a difference."
She's winding up like a spring. Jess fiddles with a paper clip, a silent movie on the other side of the table.
"I thought I could make it the tiniest bit interesting, I thought I could show you this stuff and it wouldn't be like everything else you choose to ignore just because it's there. She laughs, but it's the what-an-idiot, post revelation laugh. It was getting very Dead Poet's Society back in my room, you were gonna ace this stuff because you actually cared about it, you were gonna graduate and go to college and thank me at your Noble Prize dinner and I could feel like that Friday night back in Stars Hollow a billion years ago hadn't been a complete waste of time."
"But thanks for the reality check. Its dangerous walking around thinking these things aren't just daydream material. I'm glad you stopped me. I thought I was the Miracle Worker last night, like making you a worksheet was freeing Nelson Mandela or overthrowing Napoleon or curing cancer. Thank God that Berlin Wall's already been torn down, or I would've hopped on a plane and tried to kick it down myself. But now, if I ever get the urge to do this again, I'll just wait five minutes then go save the Amazon or reverse global warming or sit the Sunnis and Shiites down for a little peace powwow because I'll know those things as unthinkable as they are at least worth the effort."
She inhales looking livid. Fresh, vibrant, disappointed.
"…And okay, yeah, the Marie Antoinette sock puppet show was kind of lame, but you could've at least put that down on the evaluation sheet…" She sighs like a disillusioned student of prayer.
"Everyone says it wouldn't help you. And I was blamingyour teachers, like its McCullen's fault you hate his class, yeah his facial hair's distracting but take some Ritalin God-"
Having had enough of the show, Jess moves his paperclip and presses the volume button in his head. Her voice disappears and he sits back. A million retorts die on his tongue as he dimly accepts the onslaught, something that feels like its happening across the street.
What it's his fault anticipations just premeditated resentment? He never asks for any of this Good Will Hunting, life coach shit, she gives it to him. And then gets pissed when she doesn't get a thank you note.
He's getting angry just thinking about it. Heating up slowly.
He is most technically, a victim. She's the ransom-er, (she must have demands) though he's not sure the bargaining for freedom option's gonna work out in his favor. Maybe he can distract her with one of the empty coffee cups and burrow under the table. Yeah. Break through the floorboards, fall into the kid's section and break both legs on The Lorax display.
Outstanding.
And, sorry who made her Mother Teresa? Did God pull another Joan of Arc and tell her he really needed some TLC in the form of fractals? Listen Gilmore, if you can teach Mariano knowledge is power I'll make you CNN's number One Foreign Correspondent, knocking that bitch Christiane Amanpour right off her pedestal?" Did they pinkie swear on it?
He lets out a low growl.
Look at her. Sitting there, twirling her NO. 2 pencil, swinging her legs over her chair. Yelling at him. Her devoutly scribbled notes on the take over of the Peninsula of Who Gives a Crap most likely surrounded by doodles of unicorns in Harvard sweatshirts in the margins. Meanwhile he's ranting to himself. On the inside. Like a crazy person.
Jesus, where's the trademark awkward silence? The pause? Anything?
Jess's features heat with anger. You know, for a supposed book-lover she really doesn't get the whole "mood" element instrumental to a piece of literature. She's more about tone, narrative, author's voice. Blah, blah, blah. He's much more of a mood guy, how a scene feels, how it tastes, the atmosphere of it. It's what turns him on about Burroughs and Ginsberg and even Wolfe the rare occasions he stops whining and grows a pair. Mood makes the piece.
Having the after mentioned affliction, it's perfectly natural for her to completely fail to notice her surroundings (for like, the billionth time). The warm light, the Billy Holiday, the soft hot heat of the room, all circumstantial. The locked door, a tiny room with a tiny table in between them, the sleeve of her sweater brushing against his exposed forearm, all easily bypassed when one is too occupied with tone.
Being a mood man, whenever she goes all Roman Empire on his personal space to eloquently remind him of the shame he brings to the species, he is customarily compelled (completely against his will) to take inventory.
Nothing much has changed, except maybe everything he remembers is a little more intense:
A bright fierceness in her face 'cause she has yet to stop yelling. White teeth, nestled behind her pink lower lip that's jutting out like some glittering rock formation in the Andes, a sandy pink cliff lying suspended in lush desert sunlight and he can feel the heat on the back of his neck.
Her eyes are dark diamonds, the impenetrable blue that's dawn, afternoon and twilight in one, passing like strains of light falling into expanses of newborn darkness in soft overtures.
Hyper speed annoyance, pronouncing words he's glad he can't hear. He's running the paper clip gently across his exposed forearm when he hears the roar. A low, haunting fucking creepy echo that sounds like a distant train. A passing auditory phenomenon at first, then louder, and with it the sudden, startling realization that if he's ever going to get any goddamned peace-and by extension make his Saturday make sense-he's gonna have to DIH. (Do It Himself)
He has her face in his hands before her current sentence is finished hurling itself out of her mouth.