The Best Of It - Part 9 (Rory/Paris)

Jul 22, 2015 16:46

Title: The Best Of It
Pairing: Rory/Paris, ft. the Stars Hollow ensemble
Chapter: 9 ( Previous chapters here)
Word Count: 2,100


Part 9: 50 Shades of Raris

“First,” says Madeline, “you have to tell us what we’re working with here.”

“We saw the Starbucks kissing pictures,” Louise begins. Channing tries to climb up her leg. She absently shoves him down.

“You did?” Rory says. She hands another cookie to poor little Channing. Paris gives her a bemused little smile. Paris has always been baffled by anyone’s ability to tolerate small children.

“Of course,” says Madeline. “We have the internet. But what we don’t know yet is just what kind of relationship you’re rocking here.”

“The good kind,” Paris says flatly.

“How so?” Madeline asks, with a level of interest that never made an appearance during any of their group projects back at Chilton.

“Loving? Secure? Full of trust? All that fun stuff?” Rory suggests.

“Boring, boring, boring,” Louise declares.

“You’re definitely going to have to do better than that,” Madeline agrees.

“Better than an ideal relationship?” Rory says skeptically.

“Duh,” says Madeline.

“You have to rebrand, baby,” says Louise. “People want dark. Destructive. Dangerous. Think 50 Shades of Grey.”

“I try not to,” Rory says. “Ever, actually.”

“Well, you’ve got to now, book snob,” says Louise. “If you want to stop an audience from wanting love triangle drama, then you’re only going to do it by having a relationship so full of drama that a third person isn’t required to shake things up.”

“But doesn’t that kind of defeat our whole point?” Rory has to ask.

“Your point?” Madeline says blankly.

“That loving, stable relationships are the same regardless of sexual orientation?”

“Yeah, that works for a five minute Macklemore song,” Madeline says. “But no one’s going to want to watch it for six episodes.”

“This opportunity is so wasted on you,” Louise says ruefully, shaking her head.

Paris takes a deep, ‘God give me strength’ kind of breath. “So what do we do?”

“First,” Louise says, “you send in the masterminds.”

She and Madeline fist bump daintily.

Rory and Paris look at each other. It is not the most optimistic of looks.

+

FULL TRANSCRIPTS OF INTERVIEW SEGMENTS - PARIS & RORY’S MODERN STARS HOLLOW FAMILY - EPISODE 5: “BLAST FROM THE PAST”

INTERVIEW - Louise Grant-Gallagher and Madeline Lynn-Lee

INTERVIEWER
So nice to meet-

LOUISE
I’m Louise Grant-Gallagher.

MADELINE
And I’m Madeline Lynn-Lee.

LOUISE AND MADELINE (in unison)
And we’re your experts in all things fabulous.

INTERVIEWER
Well ... all right then!

LOUISE
Just because I’m a stay-at-home mom doesn’t mean I’m not a boss bitch.

INTERVIEWER
Um.

MADELINE
And I put the ‘trophy’ in ‘trophy wife.’

LOUISE
... You went with that? Really?

MADELINE
I guess it’s still a work in progress.

LOUISE
I just think it has some really insidious anti-feminist undertones, you know? Like, don’t objectify yourself.

MADELINE
You’re right. Damn it. I just thought, you know, calling myself a trophy would make me sound like a prize. Who doesn’t like prizes?

LOUISE
But don’t, like, strip yourself of your agency. And it’s not like trophy wife-ing is all you do; there’s the magazine and everything.

MADELINE
That’s true ...

LOUISE
Think of the little girls watching this who are going to totally idolize you.

MADELINE
Good point. (To Interviewer) Can we film that over?

INTERVIEW
Um. All of this is very nice, but I don’t quite understand what’s going on.

MADELINE
Oh, you know. Just in case you’re in need of some new programming once this little thing’s over.

LOUISE
We’re ceaselessly fascinating.

INTERVIEWER
I ... will keep that in mind! But for now, please do tell us: as their fellow students at Chilton, what it was like to bear witness to the beginning of Rory and Paris’s relationship? And did this Jess throw a wrench in their true, true love even back then?

LOUISE
First, you need to forget about Jess.

MADELINE
So irrelevant.

LOUISE
Once Rory and Paris first set eyes on each other, that was it. No one else could compete. The air around them felt electric.

MADELINE
They were so into each other that Rory knocked right into Paris and broke her history project, and Paris didn’t even care.

LOUISE
It was like nothing mattered anymore. Sure, Rory was small town trailer trash - or whatever you would call it. Lower middle class house trash? - and Paris was like the Elizabeth I of Chilton.

MADELINE
Total Romeo and Juliet situation.

LOUISE
But nothing could keep them apart. They had this whole pretending-to-hate-each-other thing on the surface-

MADELINE
Very old people from Star Wars.

LOUISE
-but everyone could tell that they were two seconds away from making out, like, all the time.

MADELINE
Once Paris brought her cousin as her date to a school dance to make Rory jealous.

LOUISE
And now that Jess is Rory’s step-cousin, it’s like Rory’s returning the favor. I promise you. This is all just one big sexual power play. It’s the Raris way. Keeping it in the family might be totally in style thanks to Game of Thrones, but no amount of cousin incest could be as smokin’ as those two bitches and their dark, twisty love.

MADELINE
(nods solemnly)

LOUISE
Do you want to hear about the time Paris almost impaled Rory with a fencing foil?

MADELINE
So hot.

INTERVIEWER
Oh my.

FULL TRANSCRIPTS OF INTERVIEW SEGMENTS - PARIS & RORY’S MODERN STARS HOLLOW FAMILY - EPISODE 5: “BLAST FROM THE PAST”

INTERVIEW - Paris Geller and Rory Gilmore

RORY
Um. Yep.

PARIS
Pretty much.

INTERVIEWER
... Ah. Well, you see, I’m not sure that this is the tone that we want to set with this piece. It doesn’t seem entirely in tune with the right values. In fact, it’s a bit worrying to think of you as ... and I quote ... ‘two bitches with a dark twisty love.’

PARIS
They’re crazy.

INTERVIEWER
What?

PARIS
Madeline and Louise. They’re absurd. Bonkers. Cray cray. Deranged. Need I go on? ‘Cause I can do the whole alphabet.

RORY
Madeline and Louise, um, didn’t always see eye to eye with us. They were always had a little more ... enthusiasm for scandal than we did.

INTERVIEWER
That’s a relief to hear.

PARIS
Erratic. Full of it. Goo-for-brains. Hysterical. Idiotic.

RORY
Aw. Seeing old friends. Yay, right?

PARIS
Judgment-impaired. Kooky. Loony. Mental. Nutty.

RORY
Of unsound mind.

[The two exchange a high five.]

PARIS
Nice one.

RORY (nudges her)
Well, keep going, superstar.

PARIS
Let’s see. Pox-addled.

INTERVIEWER
Oh dear.

PARIS
Metaphorically. As far as I know.

+

Madeline and Louise aren’t too bothered by the fact that Nigel didn’t take to their 50 Shades of Raris spin on things.

“No one would really look at you two and think ‘sizzle’,” says Louise.

“But you’d be really good as someone’s embarrassing parents!” Madeline adds perkily.

“Thanks,” Paris says dryly.

Madeline and Louise (and little Channing) still settle down at the Dragonfly Inn, because apparently being this close to cameras isn’t an opportunity that can just be given up.

“All we have to do is look really hot and super interesting in the background,” Louise explains.

“Isn’t it hard to look hot while you’re, y’know, carrying a two year old?” asks Rory. From what she’s heard from Lane about parenthood, makeup is the first thing to go during a toddler’s reign of adorable terror.

“Not even,” says Louise. “I’m so embracing the MILF life. Believe you me: we’ll have our own show by the time this thing wraps up.”

“And it will be way more fun than this show,” Madeline says. “No offense.”

And so it’s back to love triangle land.

+

But to Rory’s surprise, it isn’t her that Nigel wants to follow around in the wake of Jess’s (well, “Jess”’s) return. Instead, he gleefully announces that Paris and Alex are going to be taking a walk around Stars Hollow, “just to get to know each other.”

“Translation: cat fight,” Paris says. She and Rory are hidden away in Rory’s room where Nigel can’t find them. Well, okay, he could find them pretty easily, but he hasn’t shown up yet.

Which means that Paris is taking the time to turn herself into a prize fighter. She pulls her hair into a severe ponytail, then bundles up in her winter coat and dons a pair of mittens like boxing gloves. A pair of mittens she’s borrowing from Rory. Babette knitted them as a birthday gift a few years back, and so, naturally, they have cats on them.

Still, Paris manages to make them look kind of badass. It’s very Million Dollar Baby of her.

“There’s not actually going to be a fight, is there?” Rory says, sitting cross-legged on her bed.

“There will be if Nigel can help it,” Paris says, and punches the air a few times.

“Nigel’s gone dark,” Rory says morosely.

“Nigel was always dark. It’s the nature of the reality TV beast. He just tried to distract us with his Ned Flanders-y appreciation for all things quaint and small towny.” Paris does what Rory guesses might be a few Krav Maga moves, although Rory is definitely not the best person to know for sure.

“Would you mess with this?” she asks critically, eyeing herself in the mirror above the dresser.

“Definitely not,” Rory says.

“Good,” Paris says. She grabs her phone. “One last step.”

She fiddles with her phone for a minute, and then some very swaggery music starts pouring out.

“Oh no,” Rory says, although maybe she’s secretly tickled.

Paris started the Get Psyched Pre-Victory Victory Dance tradition a few years ago, right before she went on Anderson Cooper 360 for the first time. Apparently, there is no better way to beat a case of CNN-induced nerves than by blasting some hip hop and dancing with all the ferocious intensity of a Viking warrior. Anderson found her so charming - and, in some ways, so reminiscent of his unlikely BFF Kathy Griffin - that he took her and Rory out to dinner afterwards. It will forever remain one of Rory’s Best Nights Ever.

Oh, for the sweet simple days of kickin’ it with Andy Coop.

Now, Paris shakes her head a few times, bouncing up and down like a boxer ready to get her pugilism on.

Then she erupts into: “ALL I DO IS WIN WIN WIN NO MATTER WHAT.”

“You are legitimately the weirdest person I have ever known in my whole life,” Rory declares. “And I know Kirk!”

“GOT MONEY ON MY MIND, I CAN NEVER GIVE IT UP-”

“And Taylor! And Michel! And Glenn! Remember Glenn? That guy was weird! He came out of the sea like primordial ooze!”

“AND EVERY TIME I STEP UP IN THE BUILDING, EVERYBODY’S HANDS GO UP-”

“Oh no. These hands are not going up-” Rory protests as Paris grabs her wrists.

“AND THEY STAY THERE,” Paris chants gutturally, waving Rory’s arms for her. “AND THEY STAY THERE - come on, Rory, sing it - AND THEY STAY THERE-”

“And they stay thereeeeeeee,” Rory monotones.

Paris lets go of one wrist, but only to point sternly at her. Well, as sternly as you can point in cat mittens. “Weak,” she says, leaving the rest of the song to go on without her.

“AND THEY STAY THEREEEE,” Rory tries again.

“Better,” Paris says, grabbing both of her wrists again. “But there’s still room for improvement. These peoples’ hands are not going down, Rory. Ever. That’s the extent of their fear and love for you. Channel it. Embrace it. Live it.”

“You are so crazy,” Rory insists, laughing as Paris drags her arms up.

“Oh, like you don’t love it,” Paris retorts, the corner of her mouth darting up.

“Fine,” Rory says, smiling, their hands tangled together, “you got me-”

“Rory! Paris!” comes Lorelai’s voice from the kitchen. “Jess and Albert are here, and those zany newshounds are right on their heels!”

Rory usually likes listening to her mother talk. If she didn’t, she definitely would have pulled a Lizzie Borden in childhood, because axe murder is in all likelihood the only way to shut Lorelai Gilmore up.

But right now, something fizzles and dies the second her mom speaks.

“Okay,” Paris calls back, pulling away. Rory’s heart suddenly drops down to her ballet flats. “So. Time to go. See you later.”

“Um,” Rory says. “Wait.”

Paris stops, although the suddenly gloomy look on her face suggests that she really didn’t want to.

“You, um, you’ve got a hair loose,” Rory says. Carefully, she reaches over and brushes the strands of blonde hair behind Paris’s ear.

Paris stares up at her, her eyes wide.

“Thanks,” she says then, in that blunt shut-it-down voice that shows up when Paris decides to reject all human emotion, and she rushes out.

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Rory says faintly.

+

Note: The musical stylings in this chapter were inspired by Emma Stone's very mighty Lip Sync Battle performance. (Just in case you want to Pre-Victory Victory Dance along.)

fic: gilmore girls, fic: the best of it, gilmore girls

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