mia

"that one," he hums, straining a little to nod his head in an appreciative gesture towards the 'elastica' album that currently sits in your hands.

wordlessly, you hold it out to him and admire the way his deep brown eyes narrow as he attempts to bring the upside-down cover into focus. anyone else would be surprised at the gentle way in which jess plucks it from your fingers, but jess is nothing but soft in all matters pertaining to you.

in all honesty, the thought that seemingly everyone in stars hollow apart from you see jess as some cold, harsh ‘teenage dirtbag’ is, quite frankly, hilarious. so much so, that you can't stop a small laugh from escaping your lips, a sound that jess instantly picks up on.

he turns away from the cd to look at you once more, treacle brown eyes obscured by the way he squints and furrows his brow in a silent question.

"something funny?" he questions, though there's fondness laced in every word.

"nothing, nothing," you placate, but jess knows you far too well for this schtick.

"yeah, right." his tone is sarcastic, but the crooked smile he shoots you reveals he's more amused than anything. “cracks in your floorboard tell you a joke or something?”

you knock his shoulder with your own, a gentle reprimand that you don’t even mean.

“just thinking,” you admit. “like, ‘s funny that everyone sees you as some sort of devil incarnate, yet here you are, staying in on a friday night to ransack my cd collection.”

“it’s not ransacking if you enabled it,” jess refutes, raising a thick eyebrow teasingly. “but if we’re talking theft, i believe you still have at least three of my books laying around here.”

an indignant laugh escapes your lips as you sit up straighter, but before you can protest, jess is pointing to various corners of your room.

“i spotted franny and zooey when i came in, y’have high fidelity resting on your desk, and i swear please kill me is still sitting in your bag.”

“touché,” you concede, knowing that jess was absolutely correct in his accusations. “i’ll make it up to you.”

jess perks up at this, turning to face you better. he’s still upside down, and you’re surprised he isn’t dizzy from all of the blood rushing to his head in this position, but you aren’t complaining.

you’ve studied jess countless times when he’s standing the right way up; here was an opportunity to admire him in a totally different perspective.

“yeah?” he asks.

his grin tugs the corner of his mouth up into a smile, as though it’s attached to a string with you, the puppeteer of his joy.

a hand comes to trace your cheek. it’s warm, loving. all you can do is nod before your lips meet his own. it’s a tad awkward, jess still hanging from your bed, but he manoeuvres his neck to ensure your kisses become seamless.

as your tongue slips between his parted lips, jess decides that the discomfort his neck will feel tomorrow will be more than worth it.

saturdays are reserved for the infamous diner rushes.

without you there, you’re sure that luke and jess would have killed each other ten times over today alone.

your vantage point at the register allows for you to remind jess to refill people’s coffees or take a table’s order. instead of stalling, like he does when it’s just him and luke, he goes without hesitation, wanting to be back to you as quick as possible.

luke learned not to comment on it. the first time he’d bore witness to jess refilling kirk’s coffee the moment you’d asked him to, he’d made some witty remark about jess being wrapped around your finger.

jess had stubbornly refused to refill any more coffee cups that day in protest.

currently, he’s standing at the counter with you, watching you doodle onto his order note-pad. though luke keeps shoving plates into his hands and sending him to different tables, jess is keen to see how your drawing progresses each time he returns.

he’s glad he has a decent enough memory to remember the orders he takes; he would rather scribble them onto his own hand than ask you to hand his notepad back.

it’s after he gives taylor doose his omelet that he returns to his notepad in the centre of the counter, turned around so he can see it properly.

artistically speaking, it’s no masterpiece. but to jess, it’s priceless.

there, immortalised in black ink, is a glorified stickman portrait of the two of you. jess is in what he thinks is supposed to be a metallica t-shirt, and one of your eyes is a little bigger than the other, but jess doesn’t care. all he notices is that stickman you has stickman jess’ hand clasped tightly.

the moment his shift is over, jess pins it to his wall.