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“Where are you going?” Paris asks, absently - from the look on her face (buried nose-deep within her textbook, hunched over her desk), the likelihood of her actually hearing or acknowledging the response is - well, Rory’s not a gambler, but she wouldn’t bet on that.
“Nowhere,” Rory says, banking on those beautiful odds.
But Paris looks up. Her shoulders crack ominously as she straightens out. “Mm, so you’re ashamed,” she wonders. “Don’t tell me - there’s a new guy. And he’s a…” she looks Rory shrewdly up and down. Rory sweats under her layers: big jacket, on account of the wind chill; easy to take off, because the heating in Durfee has apparently never dipped below 75°, which possibly means they're incubating eggs in there. Mini scarf, because it's cute. “...phys ed major. No,” Paris immediately reassesses - “drama major.” She shimmies back down into her chair, pleased with herself.
“What’s wrong with being a drama major?” Rory sniffs. “They’re all up to their eyeballs in Shakespeare too.”
“They like Shakespeare because it makes them look intelligent. None of them could write a paper on it.” Paris digs her nose back into the textbook. “If they could, they’d be English majors.”
Which - okay, she concedes the point. Huffs. Crosses her arms. “There’s no guy.”
Paris looks up. Then back down again. “If you say so.”
Rory puffs out her chest. “There's no guy.” She wraps the scarf back tightly around her neck where it had fallen, like it’s some kind of armor. “I'm attending the LGBT alliance.”
That gets Paris to put her highlighter down. “You are?”
“-for the paper,” Rory panics.
“No,” Paris says. “You're assigned to an article about the growth of Myspace. You were telling me about it earlier.”
“Well, it's for allies too,” Rory says. “They need allies. Without allies they wouldn't have Lawrence v. Texas. Do you not care about the plight of- of-”
“Yes, Goodridge should win, yes, DOMA should be repealed, yes, yes, obviously.” Paris mirrors Rory's crossed arms. And then proceeds to look her up and down; Rory feels like Paris’s eyes are lasers and she’s stuck in place, tied down, somehow. You expect me to talk? No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die.
Rory, eventually, manages to twitch backwards. Her feet are not, in fact, glued to the floor - which is good, because a glue-related incident would probably not go down well with their RA.
Unfortunately, a grab at her arm prevents her from prostrating herself and sidling backwards out of the door like a snake. Paris looks at her, intently. “Then I'm coming with you.”
Rory attempts to channel that snake-like energy to rear up big and tall and block her off from the door. “You are not coming with me.”
“Why can't I come with you?” Paris huffs. “You said it yourself. I care about the plight of yadda yadda…”
“You just can't,” Rory argues.
“Are you seriously trying to prevent me from leaving this room? What if there’s a fire?”
“There’s no fire, Paris.” Although - Rory looks around at her various candles to make sure. No, no fire. Not even the domesticated kind.
“Then-” and Paris goes to body past her- instinctively, Rory shoves herself in the way, and Paris bounces off her (apparently her jacket is very bouncy). And then she blinks, shocked at her own gumption. Gets out of the way, because what the hell was that, Rory.
And so Paris barges past for real, in a breeze of orange-scented dry shampoo and paraffin moisturizer.
“Where are you going?” Rory follows her, doggedly, into the lounge. “You don't even know where it is.”
Paris spins back. “It's in Durfee. It’s - next to my dialects lecture.”
Rory stops. Reassesses. “Isn’t dialects in Linsly-Chittenden?”
Paris breathes through her nose. She’s not even dressed for the weather, Rory distantly notes. Her hair is tied up tight; if she went out now, her ears would get cold from the wind. Rory has the sudden urge to bestow her with a pair of earmuffs. The fluffy beige ones would match Paris’s winter jacket nicely.
And then Paris is charging at her - shoving her backwards by the forearms - Rory collides with the wall and Paris is all up in her face, huffing, angrily, into the narrow space between them - oh god, Rory panics - does she think I’m- does she know-
-Tana’s voice perks up. “Ooh, are we wrestling?”
“No!” she and Paris both shout (although, maybe, if you’re being uncharitable, Rory’s is more of a yelp), breaking apart. Tana was there the whole time, curled up against the radiator, her cardigan wrapped tightly around herself.
Paris pulls Rory by the sleeve back into their room. Slams the door shut. Walks in a circle, and huffs.
Rory collapses back against the door. “I will stop you from following me,” she says, instead of anything more dangerous, like an accusation - or, even worse, an admission.
“Really? Physically?" Paris crosses her arms. "I could overpower you.”
“I have longer fingernails,” Rory points out. Well, not by much, but still. “You keep yours clipped to the skin. I think I could do more damage.”
Paris snorts. “Only if we’re getting into a catfight.” She rummages through her bedside table. “And you and me are both better than that.” She extracts a pair of-
“Nunchucks!?” Rory exclaims. “Seriously?”
“Actually, it’s nunchaku.” She swings the wooden batons around her body with a practised ease which makes Rory sweat (or maybe that’s just the many layers of clothing she currently has on). “I do sambo too. Self defence. Important for a modern woman.”
The movements she’s doing are cool, but - “Those are just sticks, though.”
Paris walks forward and thwacks Rory in the arm.
“Ow!” It smarts painfully, even under the padding of her jacket. “That's my writing arm!”
Paris, unexpectedly, hesitates. “Did I - really hurt you?”
Well, damn. Contrition is not a usual look on her. It looks - good. Rory is not about to be mature about this. “Not as much as I'm about to hurt you!” she shouts, and dives down behind her bed, where she has cover and ammunition to pelt Paris with, in the form of myriad stuffed animals, ranging in size from beanie babies to real pelters.
“Hey!” Paris cries, taking cover behind her own bed. “This isn’t fair, I don’t have any! And just because they’re called safety eyes doesn’t mean that you can throw them at people!”
“Take that! And that! And…” Rory looks the stuffed turkey very seriously in the eyes. “You don’t want to be thrown, do you? Well, too bad! And-” she surveys the landscape of her bed. Entirely devoid of any more animals, cute or otherwise. “…I’ve run out of ammunition,” she realizes. “Now you have all the ammunition.”
“Ha,” Paris’s voice comes from the other side of the room. “Your tactics are terrible. Carefully guard your line of supplies, then you will be able to fight with advantage.”
“Don’t Sun Tzu me!” Rory cries back.
“You’ll be pleased to know that I’m too mature to throw these back at you.” Rory watches from behind her bedspread as Paris emerges, hands up in surrender. “I’m going,” she says, side-stepping towards the door.
Rory leaps up out of cover to block the door before Paris can open it. “If you’re going, I’m not going,” she says, not immaturely in the slightest.
“Fine,” Paris says.
“Fine.” Rory stands back to let Paris open the door, and surveys the mess she’s made of Paris’s side of the room. Sorry, Minxie, sorry Molly. You were never meant to be used as weapons; to be exposed to the horrors of war.
Except that Paris doesn’t. She just stands, awkwardly. Rory stands, too. Paris looks down. Oh shit - Paris is genuinely scared - not just anxious, not just overthinking, but scared. What is she supposed to do with that? Is she supposed to - appreciate the singularity of the moment? No - Paris’s dark eyes are never supposed to flit to the ground like that - her teeth are never supposed to pull at her bottom lip, pull at the lip gloss and-
Her expression hardens in an instant. Right where Rory can watch it happen: close the drawbridge, bar the gates.
“You can’t go without me?” Rory tries. “You need someone to stop you from - debating whether drag is misogynistic?”
Paris frown breaks. “It is!”
“Our gender is no less performative!” Rory says, and can’t help the smile pulling at her cheeks - it worked. Back in familiar territory. “Have you even read Butler?”
“Yes, I have,” Paris huffs, “and I see no difference between doing being a woman and just being a woman, and how that helps at all in the struggle for liberation. It sounds more like she’s blaming us for our choices.” And then she stiffens: insufficiently distracted. Well: Rory tried. “Why do you care so much if I go or not.”
“Because-” and Rory takes a moment to shut down the impulse to deny, to distract. “Because it's private!” she gesticulates. “It’s weird to go as - as buddies. As pals.”
Paris steps back. Cocks her head. “Are you a lesbian? You can't be a lesbian.”
“Why can't I be a lesbian?”
“Rory.”
“Well, yeah, okay, I see,” Rory concedes. “Why can't I be bisexual?”
“Are you bisexual?” Paris says, and there’s the kicker - all of her Gilmore-patent conversational training, and yet she couldn’t steer them away from that One Question, the Big Question, the Question she is far too scared to answer, the Thing she can never bring up - and yet here she is, staring down Paris’s big brown eyes, looking all too intently, and Paris is smart, incredibly fucking smart, there’s no way she can’t work out what this means, Rory stuck here panicking, and yet she can’t stop herself, can’t say something short and simple - just one way or the other, Rory, fucking say something-
Paris steps closer, with something almost like wonder in her voice. “So you are, aren’t you.”
Rory backs herself against the door, shakily.
Paris follows her, slowly, steadily; pulls at the end of her scarf - Rory snatches it back. “I’m trying to stop you from overheating,” she snaps, and pulls it even harder.
So Rory shoves Paris, even though she is overheating, but she doesn’t think she can stand to be looked at, to be undressed, right now - more than she already has been, more than Paris has managed with just her words.
Paris shoves back. The door clunks concerningly in its frame. “Stop panicking,” she demands.
“Being told to stop panicking does not, in fact, stop you from panicking,” Rory manages. “In fact, I would argue-”
“I said stop.”
And Rory does. Pinned to the door by her shoulders, she stops. Her upper arm stings where Paris hit her earlier. It’ll probably bruise - and yet Rory can’t say she minds.
“Why do you think I want to know?” Paris asks, no more kindly, no more gently.
“Because you want to - so that you can kick me out of the room. So that you can tell everyone not to trust me - so that-”
“Why would that mean I’d kick you out of the room? Unless it’s me that… Oh,” Paris says, the realization dawning bright in her eyes. Rory shivers. “Oh shit.”
“You swore,” Rory says, croakily. “I’ve never heard you swear before.”
“Stop talking.”
“I’m zipped.” Against the door, under Paris’s warm unfaltering hands, Rory vibrates. She can feel sweat pooling down her back, a delightful accent to the beating of her heart in her throat. “Okay, can I talk yet?”
Paris’s eyes flicker back up to meet her own. A stand of hair has fallen from her half-up-do and stuck to her lipgloss, where she’s breathing through her mouth. Rory itches to tuck it behind her ear, but she’s trapped, and Paris gets to it first - releases Rory’s left shoulder just to push the hair back, and then traps her again.
Paris doesn’t close her eyes when she kisses. That’s Rory’s first realization, before the oh my god Paris is kissing me, the Paris, HER, kissing me- Paris kissed me- she kissed me-
And then Paris pulls back. “Oh,” she says. “Is that not-”
It’s wrong, goes against the order of things, for Paris to look like that - afraid, unsure - so what can Rory do except kiss the look off her face, until it melts into acceptance. Her lip gloss is unperfumed - just the slight taste of Original Flavor petrochemical byproducts, now clinging to the seams of Rory’s own mouth.
Slowly, Paris eases up the press against Rory’s shoulders.
Her grin is contagious. “Now we're running late,” Rory says through her smile.
“You still want to go?” Paris frowns. “Don't you think we should - actually talk about this? Don't tell me you're one of those people who-”
“Oh, you want to write a relationship contract?” Rory grins. “We should totally write a relationship contract. But for now - we should go and absolutely make it, this” gesturing to the dynamic between them, the hurricane that leads to - well, an army of stuffed animals on the ground, at Yale, big grown-up Ivy League Yale, that they both got into under the weight of their own competition, “their problem. Nice to meet you, I'm Rory, she's Paris - now, Paris, how do you feel about labels? Partners, girlfriends… What about dates? Who are we telling? Do I get to meet your parents? Together, separate?”
Paris looks at her, shrewdly. The strand of hair has fallen forward again, resting against Paris’s eyelashes as she blinks. And then, wondrously: she laughs.