#but an evermore lyric hit me hard and demanded i write this

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

12 DAYS OF FICLETS, FIC 6

Rory x Paris, Gilmore Girls. Also on AO3.

Prompted by @prodigalleverage, #83 - “Stay there. I’m coming to get you.”

****

The sudden need to go swimming wasn’t what Rory would have called a plan, when she mentioned it. It was really more of a desperate attempt to avoid her own thoughts after four days alone with Paris.

They’d agreed to share the room for a week, because the cabins belonged to a friend of the Gellers and Rory wanted a little quiet before she and her mom headed off on their whirlwind tour of Europe. What she hadn’t thought about--but definitely should have--was that a week shut in a room with Paris was going to drive her completely insane.

She liked talking to Paris, Rory tried to remind herself when she started to feel overwhelmed. Conversations with Paris tended to turn into debates, but that was fun most of the time--it kept things interesting. Paris challenged her. 

Being the recipient of Paris Geller’s undivided attention was more intense, though, once no one else was around.

All day long, Paris was full of opinions on the books she saw Rory reading, commentary on Rory’s snack choices, rants about politics even when Rory didn’t bring up the state of the world...and since Paris talked in her sleep, the nights were no less peaceful.

It didn’t help that some of the things Paris said while she was dreaming were really confusing. There was no casual way to ask Paris if she dreamed about her, but Rory was officially wondering. Sometimes, Paris said nicer things in her dreams than she ever said to Rory’s face.

Some nights, Rory dreamed about Paris too. 

On day five, she couldn’t take it anymore, and she shut her book harder than was necessary, setting it aside as though she could push her distracting thoughts away along with it. 

“Want to go swimming?”

“Swimming?”

Paris looked at her like Rory was inviting her along on a spacewalk. 

“Yeah, you know, swimming? In the water? Winter Harbor Bay is right out there, or so the map tells me.”

The bay had to be big enough for them both to find a patch of quiet water to swim in, Rory thought. A chance for her brain to settle down, without Paris noticing how frayed her nerves had become. “I don’t know about you, but the sunlight could do me good.”

“The sunlight will give you cancer.” Paris let go of her pen and frowned. “Do you even have a swimsuit?”

“No, I’m going to swim naked.” Rory rolled her eyes. “Yes, I packed one. I haven’t worn it in ages, but as far as I know, it still fits. Come on, Paris, live a little. We’re ninety percent water--think of it as a homecoming.”

“That’s not even true,” Paris argued. “I hate when people say that. Our blood is ninety percent water, but our bodies are more like sixty percent water--and that’s an average.”

All that mattered to Rory was Paris’s grudging walk to her suitcase, where she began digging for her own bathing suit, proving that Rory had convinced her to come along. 

“I don’t know,” she mused with a straight face. “Some days I definitely feel like there’s more water sloshing around in here than that supposed average.” 

“Because you drink coffee by the gallon.”

“Speaking of which.” Rory grinned at her. “I’m going to finish mine while you change into your suit.”

“Hey, I never said I was coming,” Paris shot back.

“You’re holding your swimsuit.”

“That could be because I’m ready to offer it to you, if yours doesn’t fit.”

“It’s not, though.”

Paris and her crossed arms were no match for Rory’s hopeful grin. She sighed. “No, it’s not. But I’m telling you now, Gilmore, if the bay is full of people or it has a smell...you’re on your own.”

“Noted.”

The spot Rory found for them was, in fact, deserted, though she was too breathless from the drive there to offer Paris an ‘I told you so.’ Watching her life flash before her eyes was an interesting experience when she only had eighteen years of life to remember. She would not be letting Paris drive them back.

“It smells normal to me,” she did say as they set their towels down on the sand.

“Yeah, yeah.”

It’d been years since Rory swam for fun, and her lack of athletic coordination remained consistent when it came to water sports, but at least the bay started out shallow and she barely needed to do more than kick and paddle.

“I’ll be over here,” she told Paris as she drifted away, rolling over to her back and letting herself float. 

Paris watched her go, baffled by the entire situation. 

Was she supposed to do that too, just float? Lie there in silence, doing nothing, staring up at the sky? Why would anybody choose that over a good book in a climate-controlled environment?

It was one of things that had always made Rory so fascinating to her: how different they were. She seemed content, just taking it easy, and that was true for Rory in a lot of situations that gave Paris hives. 

Though her fascination with Rory had evolved over the years, into something less academic, and something harder to ignore, it hadn’t gone away. She knew now that it wouldn’t--she was never going to meet anybody quite like Rory Gilmore.

Rory glanced her way every minute or so, both to keep an eye on Paris and to gauge her own location, since the sky above was not helpful in making sure she didn’t float too far out towards the sea.

“Hey, Paris, you should try relaxing,” she suggested, grinning when Paris responded in sharp Portuguese. 

Though Paris never shifted to floating on her back like Rory had, she did claim her own part of the water and stuck to swimming there, subdued laps that gave Rory the quiet she was looking for. 

It lasted long enough that Rory almost forgot she’d been freaking out so much about Paris’s proximity, and what it meant, and how things felt different now that they weren’t high school rivals anymore.

“Oh, god. Oh god, there’s something wrapped around my ankle.”

From Rory's location yards away, she thought maybe she misheard, at first. “What?”

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s cold, and it’s slimy, and it’s moving around my ankle--are there eels here?”

Though Rory wasn’t relaxed and floating anymore, a panicking Paris wasn’t the safest to approach. She settled for treading water, watching her across the distance. “How would I know if there are eels?”

“It was your idea to go swimming today while not a single other soul was setting foot in the water!” Paris called back. “Maybe there was a reason for that. Maybe that should have told us something.”

“I didn’t drag you out here, you know. You accepted my invitation. And I don’t think there are eels. Even if there are, it’s not like eels are poisonous.”

“Oh, now you’re an eel expert?” Paris moved sideways, freezing after she started to head towards Rory’s side of the water. 

“Paris?”

“I’m stuck.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Am I known for my hilarious comedic timing? I’m stuck!” Paris’s frantic splashing, combined with the fear on her face, nudged Rory into action. 

“Stay there. I’m coming to get you.”

“Stay there,” she could hear Paris muttering as she swam to her side. “Where am I going to go?”

“Calm down, okay?” Rory tried to grab hold of her hands, not surprised when Paris pulled them away, out of her reach.

“I am calm! I don’t even need your help, I’m fine--it’s not like I’m drowning. I know how to swim.”

“Of course you do. I’m just going to dive down and see what’s got you caught, it’ll only take a second.”

Rory didn’t bother phrasing that part as a question; it was quicker to jump right to the solution than give Paris another opening to argue with her.

She needed less than a minute underwater to detangle Paris from the culprit, which Rory was secretly grateful was not an eel of any kind. Sure, they weren’t poisonous, but she wasn’t eager to meet one, either.

“Gotcha,” she declared when she reemerged, blinking at Paris through the water streaming down her face. 

Paris wiggled her toes, relieved to feel herself bob up and down. Their part of the bay was just deep enough that the water would go over her head if she relaxed. 

“It was seaweed,” Rory told her, shoving her hair back behind her ears. “It’s okay.”

For a second, Paris had gotten distracted thinking about how much darker the water made Rory’s hair look. Which led to thinking about how starkly it stood out against her pale skin...which meant she was thinking about Rory’s skin again. It was becoming a problem. 

So maybe she overreacted a little when she tuned back in to what Rory had said. 

“Obviously it’s okay, Rory. It was just seaweed, not a shark or something. God.”

“I never said it was a--”

“You know, I’m not some damsel in distress screaming my lungs out for a lifeguard, whatever you might have been thinking.”

“Damsel in distress?” 

Paris was ramping up to full rant mode, Rory could tell, and it was exactly the opposite of what she’d come out to the bay to find. For a second, she considered just turning around and swimming off, leaving Paris to talk to the water.

“And I definitely wasn’t panicking, for god sake, so just get that idea out of your head right now. If you tell anybody I was, I’ll deny it.”

Rory was out of patience with the paranoia, the ridiculous idea that she was eager to tell people about a day when some seaweed scared Paris Geller. She was sick of Paris’s complete inability to let anybody else get a word in, ever.

And most of all, she was frustrated by how things like that used to seriously annoy her, how Paris used to seriously annoy her...how she used to live inside a box in Rory’s brain labeled ‘rude and impossible and vexing’ where Rory could keep her at a comfortable distance. 

Well, she wasn’t at a distance now. Paris was a foot away with water dripping off the tip of her nose and she was taking a deep breath in preparation for her next round of argument, and nothing about that should have been cute but it was, which was probably how impulse overcame any common sense that had been ruling Rory’s brain. 

She glided forward and kissed her.

Paris jolted backwards as soon as their lips brushed, stunned, almost dipping under the surface of the bay before she steadied herself. 

Sure, in the moment, that felt like a good solution, Rory thought, backing off in response. 

It was only then, while Paris was staring at her with wide, blank eyes, that Rory remembered how often her impulsive decisions were her worst ones.

“I’m sorry,” she offered up. Deep down, she both was and she wasn’t--so she had to hope a half-apology still counted.

“I--I don’t...” Paris trailed off, her eyes still huge as she shook her head.

Rory liked her? Rory liked her, like that? Little birds braiding her hair in the morning seemed more possible than Rory liking her back. Paris had been holding on to her feelings so tightly, for years. For good reason. It didn’t make sense.

Paris was too quiet. Paris was almost never quiet. She must have really screwed up, Rory realized. Maybe in a way she couldn’t fix.

“Paris, listen. That was...I didn’t mean to--”

She stopped trying to think of a good explanation as Paris moved towards her, reaching for her hands. She was still looking down at them, at their fingers interlocking, when Paris’s mouth found hers.

This time, it wasn’t Rory acting on impulse. It was an exploration, both of them taking their time. Paris freed her hands to touch Rory’s hair, shifting her lips to the corner of Rory’s mouth when she smiled.

Paris kissed exactly like Rory had imagined--now that she could admit she had spent time imagining it. 

She didn’t soften her angles, she was intense and her fingers were firm when they stroked up Rory’s spine. But there were flashes of brightness there, too, in the grin that Paris pressed into her collarbone, the way her thumbs brushed Rory’s ribs so lightly she shivered.

Rory tasted sweet, like she was wearing lip gloss instead of seawater. When she curled her hands around Paris’s waist and pulled her close, they sank so deep into kisses that for a second they forgot to float. 

 In the past, all of Paris’s kisses had been with boys she found disappointing, and part of her had assumed that was because they were boys. As the two of them moved back towards the shore by wordless agreement, their hands joined under the water, Paris wondered if all along, it was because they hadn’t been Rory.