30 Rock Fic: On a Scale of One to Awesome
Title: On a Scale of One to Awesome
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1558
A/N: Very few of you will remember me, but it's still good to be back. Not thrilled with the flow of this, but it's been forever since I wrote anything, so I guess I have to start somewhere. Please be lenient with any typos you may find; my spell-checker in Word has done a bunk and the LJ spell-checker appears to be on some reall good crack, so I'm winging it. Cheers!
The first time Jack asks Liz out on a date, she doesn’t know it. “Grab a bite” is his phrasing, quite unlike himself, but it allows for many interpretations, and, in the end, he‘s feeling too cautious to have it any other way.
“Hanging out like a couple of dudes. Who are friends. Dude-friends. Except I’m a girl,” is how Liz takes it, seeming actually pleased at the offer of after-hours interaction.
“I will concede that point, Lemon, even in light of your bi-curious shoes,” is all he says in answer, and then takes her to a dingy little corner diner that is completely out of character for him, but he hopes will make her happy.
She eats three hotdogs, gets mustard on her shirt, and laughs at two of his jokes. He considers the evening a success.
//
The second time Jack asks Liz out, she hesitates. This time he says “Go out to dinner with me”, which is slightly less ambiguous, and then watches her face scrunch up into wary-badger mode, before she says, slowly, “Oka-ay. Sure we can grab some food. The diner again?”
He wonders if she is being deliberately obtuse, or just her usual Lemony self-- and he doesn‘t mean that in the olfactory sense (although she does frequently have a pleasantly zesty scent about her). “If you prefer.“ The exasperation he’s feeling isn’t quite hidden, and her face scrunches up even tighter at his tone, her fingers playing with the frayed edges of her TGS sweatshirt in a sudden fit of anxiety.
“You know Jack,” she grins at him, self-conscious. “I might think this was a date, if I didn’t know how grotesque you think I am.” She’s awkward, but teasing, and even huffs a laugh at the end. Unamused, Jack almost says a hundred different things in answer, but chickens out at the last second. Instead he quirks an enigmatic smile, and takes her to the diner again.
She eats two servings of fries and a hamburger, yells “Suck it!” triumphantly at the Jeopardy game playing on the television above the bar when she gets the last question right, and then they argue over politics until it dissolves into a juvenile insulting contest ending in a ‘your mom’ joke so terrible that Liz laughs until she snorts. A piece of lettuce dangles defiantly in her hair all the while.
Strangely enticed by the sight, Jack plucks it from her hair without a single insult (earning another odd, searching look from her), and again deems the evening a smashing success.
But he wants more.
//
The third time, Jack refuses to continue to play the coward, and consequently things get messy. “Would you like to go out with me tonight?” Is what he asks her as she is leaving from work one Friday evening, bold and charming as is befitting the Donaghy name. In response, her hands clench tightly around the pile of script drafts she’s clutching, and her face momentarily fills with blank panic. Jack , feeling unsure as to whether this is because it sounds like a date, or because no promise of food was made, errs on the side of better judgment and waits for her to speak.
She ventures hesitantly: “Like, for food?”
“For any activity you wish.” He is very careful to keep his tone entirely non-suggestive as he says this; if Liz says ‘gross’ at any point during this conversation, Jack is just not certain he can take it.
“Jack…” she says, and her voice sounds tinny and tilted, like her vocal chords have lost their balance. “What are you asking, here?”
“Lemon, even a woman who spends as much time alone in their apartment rearranging their collection of half-knitted sweaters as you do should recognize the general terms and conditions of a date.”
He successfully irritates her enough that, for a minute, she forgets to panic. “I like them to be arranged by color, ok? And, ’terms and conditions’? C’mon, are you asking me on a date, or to sign up for a yearly subscription of Piercing Monthly? Not that I‘ve done that, because I haven‘t. But seriously, why would you ever wanna pierce your--” Then the minute’s over. “Wait. You’re asking me on a date?”
“That would be correct, Lemon, yes.”
“Blerg!”
He tries not to feel overly offended. Nor does he ask why she finds his romantic intentions to be more disturbing than whatever she found between the no doubt highly metallic pages of Piercing Monthly. “That’s not quite the response I was hoping for, but, knowing your lackluster vocabulary as I do, it was actually one I’d considered.
“That’s not what I meant. I mean, I did mean it, but--” She squints at him. “You considered all the different things I might say? What, did you, like, make a list?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Lemon. I had Jonathon do it.”
“What?”
“A good businessman is always prepared for every possible outcome.”
“I…don’t even know what to say to that.”
“You could start with ‘yes’, followed by ‘I’d love to’. From there, most women typically swoon or immediately attempt to ravish me.” He eyes her for second. “But then, you’ve never been anything like most women.”
He’d meant it as a compliment (for once), but from the way her eyebrows furrow into alarming, anxious-caterpillar shapes, he surmises he has missed the mark somewhat. “Exactly.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m not like most women, Jack, which you would know because you’ve dated most women. I’m not all…all put-together and perfect and beautiful, or into any of that, that weird sex stuff I bet you like.”
“As far as being put-together, I have not noticed you wearing a bathing suit in place of underwear for months now. The perfection will, of course, be left to me; I‘d rather assumed that was a foregone conclusion. As for beautiful--” She winces here, her face flushing even as it scrunches up in a cringe “--I have found that there is something…quite pleasant about your shark eyes. Among other things." Seeing that she doesn't look quite so ready to bolt, he continues. "And as for the sex, Lemon, ‘weird’ or otherwise, I quite frankly believe you simply haven’t been with the right man yet. And by ‘right man‘, yes, I am most certainly speaking of myself.”
There. Simple, firm, straightforward, and ultimately irresistible, even by Lemon’s admittedly peculiar standards. The sex part may have been a bit much, but he has sufficient faith in his own charm to believe she’ll overlook it.
As for Lemon, she’s bright red now, in danger of dropping her scripts from suddenly nervous fingers, and obviously, unbearably flustered. Jack isn’t even the tiniest bit alarmed to realize in that moment that he may actually be falling in love with her. He will save the alarm for later, if she rejects him. Not that he truly expects this to happen, but after all, there is a first time for everything, and it is Lemon.
After another eight and a half seconds of silence (yes, he was counting), she says: “Uhm, okay. And by ‘okay’ I mean ‘okay I’ll go out on a date with you’, not ‘okay’ as in ‘okay, I heard you and now I need to process that’.” She blinks. “Actually, it’s both. But mostly the first one.” Seeing the smile he doesn‘t try to stop from appearing, she rushes onward. “But you should know there’s a whole lot more I should be saying about how wrong this is, and how you’ve always said you couldn’t ever want to date me unless it involved tricking one of your ex-wives, and how ‘shark-eyes’ totally isn’t a romantic thing to say, even if you mean it nicely, and how I’m mostly way, way out of the league of ‘Jack Donaghy Dating Status‘-- but, the thing is, I- I think I really want to go out on a ‘date’ date with you because I was sort of hoping it was a ’date’ date the last time we went out to eat, only there’s no way you could ever…or, well, I thought there was no way you could ever. But apparently you do. So, okay.”
He wants to kiss her then, but she would undoubtedly drop all her papers and the resulting delay, during which she would scramble awkwardly to pick them up, muttering slangy, fake curse words, is simply not something he’s willing to risk. So instead, he simply steps forward, slips a courteous hand under her elbow (hiding his smirk at her quick intake of breath), steers her around towards the exit and his waiting limo, and says “Okay” in return, as if there is nothing unusual at all about the situation. And really, in a large number of ways, there isn’t.
“Uh, hey Jack?” She asks hesitantly as they head out the doors, but the tension is gone from her posture, so he isn’t worried.
“Yes, Lemon?”
“Can we go to the diner again? Because really, on a scale of One to Awesome, those fries are at least an eight.”
“Anything you want.”
And, about to head out on his first for-real-official date with Lemon, at a cruddy diner with fries that leave grease trails on his napkin that spell out the words ‘You’re so going to have another heart attack for this’, Jack realizes he couldn't be happier.
At least until they get to the 'sex stuff'.
End.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1558
A/N: Very few of you will remember me, but it's still good to be back. Not thrilled with the flow of this, but it's been forever since I wrote anything, so I guess I have to start somewhere. Please be lenient with any typos you may find; my spell-checker in Word has done a bunk and the LJ spell-checker appears to be on some reall good crack, so I'm winging it. Cheers!
The first time Jack asks Liz out on a date, she doesn’t know it. “Grab a bite” is his phrasing, quite unlike himself, but it allows for many interpretations, and, in the end, he‘s feeling too cautious to have it any other way.
“Hanging out like a couple of dudes. Who are friends. Dude-friends. Except I’m a girl,” is how Liz takes it, seeming actually pleased at the offer of after-hours interaction.
“I will concede that point, Lemon, even in light of your bi-curious shoes,” is all he says in answer, and then takes her to a dingy little corner diner that is completely out of character for him, but he hopes will make her happy.
She eats three hotdogs, gets mustard on her shirt, and laughs at two of his jokes. He considers the evening a success.
//
The second time Jack asks Liz out, she hesitates. This time he says “Go out to dinner with me”, which is slightly less ambiguous, and then watches her face scrunch up into wary-badger mode, before she says, slowly, “Oka-ay. Sure we can grab some food. The diner again?”
He wonders if she is being deliberately obtuse, or just her usual Lemony self-- and he doesn‘t mean that in the olfactory sense (although she does frequently have a pleasantly zesty scent about her). “If you prefer.“ The exasperation he’s feeling isn’t quite hidden, and her face scrunches up even tighter at his tone, her fingers playing with the frayed edges of her TGS sweatshirt in a sudden fit of anxiety.
“You know Jack,” she grins at him, self-conscious. “I might think this was a date, if I didn’t know how grotesque you think I am.” She’s awkward, but teasing, and even huffs a laugh at the end. Unamused, Jack almost says a hundred different things in answer, but chickens out at the last second. Instead he quirks an enigmatic smile, and takes her to the diner again.
She eats two servings of fries and a hamburger, yells “Suck it!” triumphantly at the Jeopardy game playing on the television above the bar when she gets the last question right, and then they argue over politics until it dissolves into a juvenile insulting contest ending in a ‘your mom’ joke so terrible that Liz laughs until she snorts. A piece of lettuce dangles defiantly in her hair all the while.
Strangely enticed by the sight, Jack plucks it from her hair without a single insult (earning another odd, searching look from her), and again deems the evening a smashing success.
But he wants more.
//
The third time, Jack refuses to continue to play the coward, and consequently things get messy. “Would you like to go out with me tonight?” Is what he asks her as she is leaving from work one Friday evening, bold and charming as is befitting the Donaghy name. In response, her hands clench tightly around the pile of script drafts she’s clutching, and her face momentarily fills with blank panic. Jack , feeling unsure as to whether this is because it sounds like a date, or because no promise of food was made, errs on the side of better judgment and waits for her to speak.
She ventures hesitantly: “Like, for food?”
“For any activity you wish.” He is very careful to keep his tone entirely non-suggestive as he says this; if Liz says ‘gross’ at any point during this conversation, Jack is just not certain he can take it.
“Jack…” she says, and her voice sounds tinny and tilted, like her vocal chords have lost their balance. “What are you asking, here?”
“Lemon, even a woman who spends as much time alone in their apartment rearranging their collection of half-knitted sweaters as you do should recognize the general terms and conditions of a date.”
He successfully irritates her enough that, for a minute, she forgets to panic. “I like them to be arranged by color, ok? And, ’terms and conditions’? C’mon, are you asking me on a date, or to sign up for a yearly subscription of Piercing Monthly? Not that I‘ve done that, because I haven‘t. But seriously, why would you ever wanna pierce your--” Then the minute’s over. “Wait. You’re asking me on a date?”
“That would be correct, Lemon, yes.”
“Blerg!”
He tries not to feel overly offended. Nor does he ask why she finds his romantic intentions to be more disturbing than whatever she found between the no doubt highly metallic pages of Piercing Monthly. “That’s not quite the response I was hoping for, but, knowing your lackluster vocabulary as I do, it was actually one I’d considered.
“That’s not what I meant. I mean, I did mean it, but--” She squints at him. “You considered all the different things I might say? What, did you, like, make a list?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Lemon. I had Jonathon do it.”
“What?”
“A good businessman is always prepared for every possible outcome.”
“I…don’t even know what to say to that.”
“You could start with ‘yes’, followed by ‘I’d love to’. From there, most women typically swoon or immediately attempt to ravish me.” He eyes her for second. “But then, you’ve never been anything like most women.”
He’d meant it as a compliment (for once), but from the way her eyebrows furrow into alarming, anxious-caterpillar shapes, he surmises he has missed the mark somewhat. “Exactly.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m not like most women, Jack, which you would know because you’ve dated most women. I’m not all…all put-together and perfect and beautiful, or into any of that, that weird sex stuff I bet you like.”
“As far as being put-together, I have not noticed you wearing a bathing suit in place of underwear for months now. The perfection will, of course, be left to me; I‘d rather assumed that was a foregone conclusion. As for beautiful--” She winces here, her face flushing even as it scrunches up in a cringe “--I have found that there is something…quite pleasant about your shark eyes. Among other things." Seeing that she doesn't look quite so ready to bolt, he continues. "And as for the sex, Lemon, ‘weird’ or otherwise, I quite frankly believe you simply haven’t been with the right man yet. And by ‘right man‘, yes, I am most certainly speaking of myself.”
There. Simple, firm, straightforward, and ultimately irresistible, even by Lemon’s admittedly peculiar standards. The sex part may have been a bit much, but he has sufficient faith in his own charm to believe she’ll overlook it.
As for Lemon, she’s bright red now, in danger of dropping her scripts from suddenly nervous fingers, and obviously, unbearably flustered. Jack isn’t even the tiniest bit alarmed to realize in that moment that he may actually be falling in love with her. He will save the alarm for later, if she rejects him. Not that he truly expects this to happen, but after all, there is a first time for everything, and it is Lemon.
After another eight and a half seconds of silence (yes, he was counting), she says: “Uhm, okay. And by ‘okay’ I mean ‘okay I’ll go out on a date with you’, not ‘okay’ as in ‘okay, I heard you and now I need to process that’.” She blinks. “Actually, it’s both. But mostly the first one.” Seeing the smile he doesn‘t try to stop from appearing, she rushes onward. “But you should know there’s a whole lot more I should be saying about how wrong this is, and how you’ve always said you couldn’t ever want to date me unless it involved tricking one of your ex-wives, and how ‘shark-eyes’ totally isn’t a romantic thing to say, even if you mean it nicely, and how I’m mostly way, way out of the league of ‘Jack Donaghy Dating Status‘-- but, the thing is, I- I think I really want to go out on a ‘date’ date with you because I was sort of hoping it was a ’date’ date the last time we went out to eat, only there’s no way you could ever…or, well, I thought there was no way you could ever. But apparently you do. So, okay.”
He wants to kiss her then, but she would undoubtedly drop all her papers and the resulting delay, during which she would scramble awkwardly to pick them up, muttering slangy, fake curse words, is simply not something he’s willing to risk. So instead, he simply steps forward, slips a courteous hand under her elbow (hiding his smirk at her quick intake of breath), steers her around towards the exit and his waiting limo, and says “Okay” in return, as if there is nothing unusual at all about the situation. And really, in a large number of ways, there isn’t.
“Uh, hey Jack?” She asks hesitantly as they head out the doors, but the tension is gone from her posture, so he isn’t worried.
“Yes, Lemon?”
“Can we go to the diner again? Because really, on a scale of One to Awesome, those fries are at least an eight.”
“Anything you want.”
And, about to head out on his first for-real-official date with Lemon, at a cruddy diner with fries that leave grease trails on his napkin that spell out the words ‘You’re so going to have another heart attack for this’, Jack realizes he couldn't be happier.
At least until they get to the 'sex stuff'.
End.