(no subject)
Title: IHOP Monkey Interlude
Author: frey_at_last
Tags: 30 Rock, Jack/Liz, PG. Post-Reunion.
Disclaimer: They belong to Tina Fey.
Note: This is my first 30 Rock fic, and I've only been watching for a month, so be gentle. It is hotel fic. I am grabbing this cliche by the gonads and crushing it.
- - -
After Jack saves her from being Carried and they escape from that horrible auditorium - the jet wasn't really waiting, that was just Jack's getaway line - Liz stands panting in the hotel elevator and watches Jack smooth his cuffs, give his slow blink. "Thanks, Jack," she says after a second. The elevator dips and begins to climb. "I appreciate your not letting me get slimed."
"I would never sit idly by while you were dowsed in pig's blood, Lemon. Or the bodily fluid of any species of livestock. That would be extremely unbecoming for a man of my bearing."
Liz grins at him. "See? That's what I mean. You don't have to worry about not knowing who you are or anything, even if Don Geiss is some long-living Fidel Castro jerk. You're Jack Donaghy! The semi-virtuous path."
Jack is looking at her from under his lashes again, and she realizes maybe not for the first time how really weird it is that a guy like Jack should have eyelashes. Okay, most people have eyelashes, but eyelashes that she would actually notice him looking at her with.
"I am very loyal, in fact," he is saying. "At least to those whom I value."
Liz gets a kind of fizzy feeling in her stomach after he says that, probably because of the spritzer.
"And I am gratified that you hold Castro in such low regard."
"Yeah, well." Liz tries not to look too pleased. "What good is 99% literacy if you don't let people use Wikipedia?"
"Anyway," Jack sighs with his whole body, "it is true that I am most likely not meant to be Larry Braverman. I have a select area of expertise, Lemon, and it does not include mulch, or drunken Superbowl parties, or even parking lot donuts. I am a victim of my own managerial excellence."
"Aw, Jack." He's staring at the elevator doors a little wistfully and Liz all of a sudden really feels like touching him, his arm or head or something. Again that spritzer. "That's not a BAD thing. You aren't a mulch salesman because you've got really great, you know, business instincts. You're always one jump ahead of the hitmen. One hop ahead of the hump. The fact is, if you didn't order your business cards way in advance, you'd probably still be Jack the new mail guy, pushing around that cart."
He's nodding vaguely. "Yes, yes. That's true. I have much at my disposal. I enjoy a great deal of political and market influence. I can chart the tides of capitalism and American national interest. I've been yachting with both Jay Nordlinger and Victor David Hanson."
"Oof, okay." Liz is still recovering from her flashback to high school and does not need to be reminded that she's spending the night with a guy who's buddy-buddy with the staff at National Review.
Woah, nelly. Not spending-the-night spending the night. Just hanging-out spending the night, after an unenjoyable dance event with cheap alcohol and awkward sexual party games. In a completely non-date way.
At least Jack has perked up a little. "That does remind me, however. You said my bags were delivered to your room?"
"Uh, yep. All seven. For one weekend in Miami, Jack, really?"
"Well, why were you looking in them, anyway? Those cards were carefully packed!"
"I was, mm, checking to see they weren't mine." Oh, Lemon. Embarrassing.
"Since when do you own personalized Louis Vuitton luggage with gold trim?"
"Hey, you know, speaking of personal trespassing, don't forget that you kissed me today, Jack. You tasted my forehead!"
"And it was not unpleasant."
"Gross." Liz isn't charmed by men tasting her acne soap and judging her for it, but, they are both smiling at each other here in the elevator despite that. So maybe she'll let this one slide.
The elevator dings and the doors open on Liz's floor. She hesitates. "Um, you wanna come get your bags? Watch special hotel cable?"
"Actually, yes. And I should tell you, I have not booked my own room. They are, in fact, full up."
She stops abruptly in the middle of the hallway, watching Jack continue right past her three more paces. "What? Jack! Where are you going to sleep?"
He turns and looks at her, unperturbed. "Did you really think they'd sent my bags to your room by accident, Lemon? I would never trust my luggage to any bellboy so incompetent as that."
"Jack! You can't - we can't share a hotel room! C'mon!" Liz maybe stamps her foot a little, to give emphasis.
He's making a wide gesture with his hands. "Liz, it's not like they don't provide two beds. The only other lodging is another town over, past a trick detour, and I don't especially want to travel so far at this hour. I'm hardly planning to seduce you in your sleep."
She can't believe his attitude. This is just so Jack. "It's impossible to seduce someone in their sleep, okay. You have to wake them up first. And yeah, I know I'm so grotesque and I wore a foot brace and that's supposed to make me feel better. Well, today I learned I was the mean bitch in high school, Jack, so I am totally fine with that, buster, totally fine."
It's a good thing Liz is always ready with a comeback. She sweeps past him to her door and begins to dig for her key card. Jack gets closer, looming behind her as she successfully locates and swipes it. Once the door is open, Liz thumps in and starts feeling for the lights.
"I never said you were grotesque. Of the several words I might use to describe you, 'grotesque' has no semantic relation."
Liz hesitates to flip the light switch when she's found it, squinting at Jack in the half dark. "Okay. Thanks."
His eyebrows go up. "Time for some television?"
So they spend the rest of the evening watching "His Girl Friday" on AMC, because Jack confesses his man crush on Cary Grant. That is, Liz considers it a man crush. "Archibald Alec Leach was a true man, even in Hollywood. Look at his stance! Such effortlessly virile panache." Jack is almost crying into his water cup. Liz is kinda concerned about that, and pats his shoulder, thinking he must still feel emotional about the Don Geiss fiasco. Her patting segues into rubbing as Jack sniffs and props his head on his fist. "I might not be Larry Braverman, but I could be Cary Grant, Liz. I could."
"Yeah, you could, Jack."
Liz wouldn't really want Jack to turn into Cary Grant, cause the dude was married six times and ended up with some lady almost fifty years younger than him. Jack has been around, but even he could agree that fifty years is a bit much.
But if her positive reinforcement makes Jack feel better about not getting to be CEO, then that's okay with her. Maybe what he was saying about her jokey-insulting-people defense mechanism was true, but she really does feel horrible about Jack being so badly disappointed. When he'd told her, he was so mock-casual about it even though he was obviously seriously bummed. Even his hair looked crestfallen, and she hated seeing that.
Totally without planning to, she lifts her hand off his back and gives his hair a sort of rub-scratch.
Walter and Hildy continue interrupting each other on the TV, but Jack turns and looks straight at her, his mouth lax. Liz's hand has frozen on top of his head. Oh, awkward, awkward. His face is way too close, filling her whole vision. Why are his eyes so blue? Is she supposed to find eye-crinkles attractive?
"Lemon?" At least when he speaks she can snap out of it, folding her hands together gracefully in her lap. Graceful, yes. "Um, sorry. You just seemed a little upset. I had a spritzer earlier."
"I'm ... not upset." His voice is strangely low, and it's like when he makes fun of her by stating a question.
"Cary Grant is, really, a star at physical comedy." Liz points at the screen with her bag of pretzels, but Jack won't budge. She can see him staring at her from the corner of her eye. "God, look at that manly, vivacious - fox."
It gets worse; Jack starts to chuckle. She can even feel him moving through where their arms are slightly touching. Ugh, and she thought their seven minutes in heaven had been awkward. "Liz," he's saying, "are you trying to seduce me?"
"Okay, no," Liz says. She starts to get up off the bed, but Jack grabs her elbow and yanks her back down.
"Don't get up! I'm only teasing, I understand; Cary and Rosalind are merely getting you in the mood. They do have a definite sexual charge. I've been aroused many times by watching this man's films."
Okay, there is no way she is hung up on Jack, or wants to touch his hair ever again. "Jack, c'mon. Yuck."
He's still laughing with that rich, smug, delighted note in his voice that usually she finds kinda endearing, but does not at this moment. "Don't make fun of me," she says in a non-sulky way.
"Oh, Liz." He's still holding her elbow, and he gives her a squeeze. "I'm not, honestly. Come on, just finish the movie. I did save you from utter public humiliation tonight."
"And you're crashing in my room," she mutters, but settles back tentatively against the pillow. He is missing his blow-off-steam relax weekend in Miami, because he stopped to drop her off in a private jet. Then again, he was the one who talked her into coming. But again... he did say she was in the cool, pretty crowd. She relaxes her shoulders and lets out the breath she's been holding for like five minutes.
"Sharing a hotel room after insulting me and my business cards and being saved from social homicide via pig's blood is, frankly, the least you could do. And I meant what I said about - being glad for your sterling character, though hidden behind that ornery facade." Jack may or may not nudge her with his elbow, in an affectionate and purely friendly way.
"Yeah. Thank you, Jack. It's good to know you got my back. And I owe you one."
"Don't mention it," he says.
They finish the movie and go to sleep in separate beds, and it is, Liz admits, not such a terrible a way to round off a high school reunion.