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chapter sixteen: amor fati

a/n:

tw(s) — humorous discussions around sex, ominous latin references

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Things Rory didn't know about boys before Rick Riley: sometimes they think that a girl's virginity means a lot more than it does to the girl.

Her evidence for this conclusion? Him staring at her like she just killed his dog after she told him the secret she meant to disclose to him last night.

She didn't wake up with the intention to scare him. No. She just, after spending the wee hours of the morning crying in Adam Banks' arms, popped up, decided she'd at least try to make something good out of the doomed narrative she's trapped in, and begged Adam to take her back to the school.

She didn't want to, but here she is, watching in real-time as the cogs stop turning in his head and smoke starts to pour out of his ears.

"Rick?"

(In hindsight, maybe showing up at your boy's door in a different boy's clothing and telling him that he was your first is not a great idea.)

They're sitting on his bed together, her cross-legged and facing him as he let his legs hang over the edge. He was just waking up when she arrived, so he's only wearing a pair of black and red checkered pajama bottoms, and he runs his hands through his hair as he processes what she said.

"Are you okay?"

He turns to her again with a dent in his brow. "Are you?"

"Oh, yeah. I mean, I have a bit of a headache, but that was because I had a weird night, not because—— Sorry."

Rick's face has only scrunched up more.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think it mattered, honestly."

Which isn't entirely a lie.

She's been much too aware of the idea of her virginity as a concept for far too long, but she's never actually given the act of losing it a second thought.

Rory just wasn't very knowledgeable about it. Oliver, too afraid in the face of a real parenting moment, told her that she would get pregnant by just sleeping in the same bed as a boy, and her mother never talked to her much outside of gossip on mutual family, let alone enough to give any real advice on sex.

Her only real sex education came from well-meaning friends.

"You didn't think it mattered? I—— isn't it supposed to matter a lot to you? It's, like, a big thing for girls, isn't it?"

Rory shrugs. "It's not a big thing to me."

Rick just runs his hands over his face and into his hair. "Scott's gonna kill me."

"What? Why?"

"Because you're you." He gestures to her. "You don't—— I would've made it special, if I'd known. Taken you on a date at least."

Despite still not understanding the significance here, she smiles, slightly, at the idea that she is inherently special to him. (And Scott, of course.)

"It didn't have to be special, or like a scene from a soap opera, or anything more than it was. It was fine. It was good."

His expression falters.

"Besides, I'm pretty sure we've already been on, like, two dates according to the gossip that constantly gets parroted back at me."

Rick manages to breathe a laugh at that, but his body retains tension as he leans back against his wall and clenches his eyes shut. Rory chews on the inside of her cheek.

"If you aren't upset, then why'd you run away."

Ah.

Yeah.

"I was freaking out."

His eyes fly open.

"About something else! Something related but not the same." She elaborates before he can open his mouth. "I'm just... There are, potentially, a lot of very bad things that could happen if and when people find out we were a thing, and it all kind of hit me at once."

Rick nods. He's looking at her much more softly than he was before (though, of course, he still looks like he might throw up any minute) and, after a minute where he just sits there and kisses his teeth, reaches over to hold her hand.

"So, uh, we're a thing?"

"I mean, we are, aren't we?" Suddenly, a heat starts to creep up her neck. "Am I being presumptuous?"

"No, no. You're fine. 'A thing' works... Just wanted you to confirm it."

Relief floods her system, and she lets her shoulders relax.

Another beat of silence passes before a grin cracks across his face. "Presumptuous? Really?"

There he goes again, letting things roll right off him like water off a duck's back. Rory envies him for it, silently, but also wonders just how recovered he is from the terror that was just gripping him as she slaps him on the chest.

"Shut up."

"Make me."

"You're such an ass."

"And a good one at that, since you're not depriving yourself of good things, and all that."

Her eye twitches. She had no idea that the line between wanting to kiss him and wanting to hit him would become even thinner after she finally kissed him.

"Regretting your decision now, aren't you?" Rick's all smug, now. "Too bad you're stuck with me, now, babe."

"Babe?"

"Yeah, well, I've seen you naked. That, in a situation like ours, tends to lend toward pet names."

"What if I hated it?"

"You don't. You're blushing."

Rory kisses her teeth because she can feel her ears burn and knows that he's right. Then, taking him up on his earlier suggestion to make him stop talking, she leans across the space between them to kiss him.

It's then, as one of his hands comes up to hold her face, that the door opens.

"Oh, Jesus. Is this something I just have to deal with now?"

When they pull away from one another, Rory sits back and looks over her shoulder to find Scott, who has just gotten back from a workout and is staring at the two of them with a face contorted with what seems to be disgust.

"Hi, Scott."

"Hi, Rory." Scott parrots back, mocking the tone of her voice half-heartedly. "This, this invading my personal space with your hormone-fueled happy ever after, cannot keep happening. Get a room. Preferably one that I am not, or never will be, in."

"Good morning to you, too, then." She grumbles.

"This is my room, too, y'know." Rick, meanwhile, defends his honor. "If we go to her room, my sister will cut my balls off with a box cutter."

"Good. Maybe when you're neutered, you'll stop defiling the youth."

Rory snorts a laugh, much to Rick's and her mutual dismay, and covers it up with a poor attempt at a cough. "I'm not even an entire year younger than either of you."

"I miss the days when you weren't caught up in his boyish charms and actually agreed with me." Scott walks into the room as he complains, whatever music he was listening to becoming vaguely audible as he became closer.

She gives him a flat look. "I'm not caught up in his 'boyish charms', I just think he's kind of pretty sometimes." The series of indignant sounds Rick makes in response to her air quotes and usage of the words kind of pretty go ignored. "And I do agree that him being neutered would do him some good."

"Why am I being talked about like I'm not in the room?"

"Because you're pretty."

Rick smiles somewhat sarcastically and narrows his gaze, slightly. Rory reaches down to pinch his cheek and he flicks her hand away.

"God." Scott groans again and flops onto his bed.

"Grow up." Rick says.

Rory, instead, settles for sticking her tongue out at her goalie.

"Where are you going?" Rick asks, scooching back to the edge of his bed as she starts looking for her shoes among the wreckage that seems to be their bedroom.

"Back to my room? I have to do some laundry because I have literally no clean clothes to wear and a huge Latin test on Monday that I still need to study for, so I'd like to at least get one of those things done before breakfast."

Rick makes a bit of a face as if it's shocking to him that she could do all of that in one morning, but he nods anyway.

"Okay. I'll see you there?"

"Mhm."

It feels like a moment where they're supposed to kiss but she's too conscious of Scott and all of his complaints, so she just finishes putting on her shoes and gives him a smile. She can hear Rick, even if it isn't necessary, get up and follow her out.

"Wait,"

His fingers brush against her bicep and she stops, turning on the threshold to look up at him.

"Take this."

Rick hands her a fading University of Minnesota Gophers sweatshirt. She takes it but cocks an eyebrow after glancing it over.

"I'm going to be honest," He says, both hands on the doorway and his fingers tapping against the wood. "It feels a little weird to see you in another dude's clothes, even if it's Banks."

That, even if a part of her wants to roll her eyes at that, makes her smile. "Okay. Thank you."

Rick smiles, too, as if he's relieved by the fact that she accepted the gift, and then leans down to capture her in a chaste kiss.

"I'll see you later." She hums against his lips.

"Yeah. I'll see you later."

When they fully pull away, Rory is sure she's blushing again. How did she find herself here, outside his room with his sweatshirt in her hands and the feeling of his lips still on hers?

She stops thinking about it (because that has proven to be disastrous to her in the past), flashing him a parting smile and leaving to her room.

Rachel is, surprisingly, awake when she gets there. Regretting being alive as much as she usually does when she's hungover and chugging water like she's dying of thirst, sure, but definitely awake.

"Hey."

"Hi." Rachel says, gasping for air as she puts her water bottle down. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm alright."

"I'm so sorry. I really am. Some girl told me in gym, but I didn't think she was a reputable source, and I didn't want to make you get into a fight with your boyfriend over nothing because I knew you two weren't having a good time. I know you should've told you and I'm sorry but I wanted you to have context before you decided you hated me——"

Rachel, somehow, says it all in one breath.

"It's fine, Rach. Really."

That, finally, makes her pause.

"You messed up, but you had my best interest in mind. I get it." Rory shrugs and glances down at the sweater in hand. "And, uh, I kind of hooked up with your brother—— not out of revenge, or anything, but it happened, and we're seeing each other, so..."

It's Rachel's turn to blink speechlessly at her.

"Oh."

"Yep."

"Wow. Lorelei Myrtle, you just never cease to amaze me."

Rory laughs because she's ninety percent sure that it's supposed to be a good thing and gets their bottle of Advil for Rachel without being asked to.

Confident about where she stands with her roommate and actively not thinking too deeply about the whole Rick thing (and not of the Ducks at all), Rory, wearing the U of MN sweatshirt, puts her Latin notebook and Discman on top of the laundry in her basket.

"Hey, I'm going to go do some laundry. Do you need anything?"

Rachel shakes her head. "I'm just going to sit here until the world stops spinning."

"Yeah. I'll bring you up some bread, or something, from the cafeteria."

Rachel, lying back on her bed and pinching the bridge of her nose with one hand, lifts a thumb up in thanks.

The laundry room is as empty as the hallways are. She puts her headset on and listens to a burned mix of her favorite Beatles songs as she sorts through her clothes. Colors get put in one machine, whites in another, and delicates in a third, Rory comfortable with the fact that there are enough machines in here for her to not get any grief from a potential surplus of people. The mix of the various scents of bleach, detergent, and fabric softener makes her vaguely hungover body slightly nauseous, but she pushes on and feels a little bit better once all of the machines are on.

With at least an hour to kill and a nagging fear that her belongings will just miraculously be moved by someone while she's gone, she sits on one of the machines and pulls her notebook into her lap.

Latin has far too many rules for a dead language, in her opinion. Or, maybe, it's that no single teacher that she's ever had has taught her it the same way. With how easy French came to her, she would have thought that their root language would be simple, too, but she would be wrong.

Just about halfway through the wash cycle and in the middle of her third or fourth read-through of the flashcards, she drops one.

Before she can hop down to go get it, though, she finds that someone else (someone who she had no idea came in) already has.

Luis Mendoza holds the rectangle of paper in his hand for a moment, his nose wrinkled as he tries to read the word before he hands it over. Rory's heart stops in her chest as she snatches it away from him, the other hand ripping her headset off her head.

Without the music—— even with the machines going—— the room is unbearably quiet.

"Hi..." He says, the words clumsy on his tongue.

She swallows, looking at him with the same curtness that she speaks with. "Hi."

Why is he trying to talk to her now?

When did he come in?

In a move that's too awkward for his frame, Luis leans back on the washing machine across from her. Brows pinched to the center of her forehead, Rory holds her flash cards close to her chest and lets the suffocating silence consume them both.

"So, uh, you and Rick? That's official?"

His questions come with a gesture to the sweatshirt.

Rory grits her teeth. "What does it matter?"

Luis lifts his hands defensively.

"Sorry..."

She flicks with the corner of one of the cards in order to not let herself feel guilty for snapping at him.

"I, uh, I was reading a magazine earlier..."

"Congratulations, you can read."

"Ror." He sighs, flinching when she looks up at him again. "Your, uh, your grandpa... is he really sick?"

Rory sits up ramrod straight.

"What magazine? What did they say?"

"They just said he was sick."

"Well don't believe everything you read." She all but spits at him. "He's fine. He's just old."

(Wow. Way to stay cool.)

Her grandfather's relationship with the Ducks was, while practically nonexistent in its own way, interesting.

They were obsessed with him, in short. Eli was a legend to them, the man whose name decorated stadiums and all the gear that Bombay bought for them he, in return, he humored them. He gave them made-up answers to their questions and told them they reminded him of Hall of Famers that he never actually met because he thought they were sweet (albeit a little sycophantic) and he liked how they were her only real friends.

But that gave them no right to concern themselves with his wellbeing.

Especially not with how they've been treating her.

"You could've told me..."

"When was I supposed to tell you, Luis? When you were being sketchy about how all rich kids were the same? Or when you all decided to stop speaking to me over a perceived betrayal?"

Luis winces again.

"Oh, I'm sorry, guys, that you're being bullied by kids you keep saying are just like me, but my grandpa isn't doing so well——"

"I'm sorry."

Rory's voice catches in her throat with a strangled noise.

Luis is just... staring at her with this strange look on his face.

"I'm sorry that it happened the way it did."

She manages a scoff. Her stomach churns as the rush of blood to her head renders her dizzy.

He's sorry?

He's sorry?

(?!$&#)

"I'm sure you are."

"I wish your grandpa the best, too."

"I'm sure you do."

Another silence consumes them and she considers going to hide in Rick's dorm for the next twenty or so minutes, but Luis breaks it again.

"What the hell kind of word was that, anyway?"

He points for emphasis and Rory looks, even if she hates herself for it, at the card he picked up, which rests at the top of the pile.

"It's not a word. It's a phrase." She mumbles petulantly. "Amor fati. It means to love your fate."

"Oh."

"Yeah... Nietzsche said it basically means to love your life, though, because your fate is your life."

Luis nods succinctly.

Rory tries not to look at him again after that.

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a/n:

word count — 2851

idk how to tell you guys this but going on a few dates, kissing a few times, and even sex does not guarantee the boyfriend-girlfriend thing. the dynamics of a relationship are all up to you and the person you are with. rick and rory are not boyfriend and girlfriend for a reason (bc that's moving lightning fast.)

anyway, i'm not too sure how to actually end this fic. it was going to circle back to being a lester fic but I am now so scared of losing my two (2) commenters that I might have to change it. might have to pull a lasso /j.

comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and they motivate me to continue! thank you