Kinda Weird - Jack/Liz
It was another one of those fancy parties that Jack insisted was in her best interest to attend. She could see how Jack had been able to convince her that she would benefit from meeting TV executives from all of the major networks at this dinner party. Of course, had she thought about it a little harder, she would have realized that she already knew all of the network executives she needed to know- namely Jack Donaghy. This thought occurred to her after about five minutes of attempted conversation with the boring suits from other networks. She swears that Jack is so good at twisting words that he would be a very successful lawyer right now if microwaves had not been his calling.
They had finished the main course and Jack was making small talk with the other executives at the table. Liz had started off listening and paying attention, but quickly found that she could not pretend to be interested in a discussion about network business strategies and the dreaded topic of synergy for much longer than five minutes. She had divided her attention between listening to the band play and trying to get a waiter’s attention to bring her another dessert when Jack turned to her.
“How are you doing, Lemon?” he asked.
“Oh, you know, just having a blast listening to all of this business talk,” she said with a sarcastic edge to her voice. “I mean, I know talk about the stock market does certain… things for you,” she said, shuddering at the memory of the last time she had to pull him out of the Stock Exchange, “but it kind of gives me a headache.” A small smile tugged at the corners of Jack’s mouth.
“Well, since you are so incredibly bored out of your mind, would you care to dance instead?” he asked.
“Wait, me? To this music?” she questioned, gesturing towards the band, which was currently playing a classical piece. She shook her head and chuckled nervously. “No, no, no. Bad idea. Very bad idea. I definitely can’t dance this kind of dance.”
“Luckily for you, I can,” Jack informed her. He rose out of his chair and extended his hand to her. “All you have to do is follow me.”
“I still don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Lemon, you’re an award-winning follower. Of course it’s a good idea,” he told her impatiently.
Liz sighed and pointed her finger at him in warning. “Fine. But when I step on your feet, break the heel off these shoes, and twist my ankle, I told you so.” She took his hand and allowed herself to be led out to the dance floor. They moved to the music in comfortable silence for a couple minutes before either broke the silence.
“See? I told you this was a good idea,” Jack said smugly. Liz let out a somewhat stifled snort.
“The night isn’t over yet, pal,” she told him. Jack chose to ignore this comment.
“I’m sorry that you’re having such a horrible time tonight, Lemon,” he said sincerely. Liz shook her head.
“Oh, no, it’s really not too bad,” she told him. “I mean, did you have any of that filet mignon? It was awesome! And then that soup stuff was really good, too. So really, this isn’t a complete waste of time.” Jack smiled.
“I’m glad you think so,” he said smoothly. “I must apologize for persuading you to accompany me tonight. I know this is not the sort of experience you normally enjoy. Honestly, I thought that having you here would make this evening a more bearable experience for me, and it has, so thank you.”
“Well, you’re welcome, Jack,” Liz replied, slightly surprised and confused by Jack’s sincere expression of gratitude. It was not a common occurrence, and Liz wasn’t sure how she was supposed to follow it up. She went with the first thought that came to her mid. “But what was up with introducing me to that guy as your girlfriend? Do I really have to pretend to be your girlfriend everywhere we go? Because if I do, then I’m pretty sure this is the last time I’m accepting an invitation from you.”
“No, there’s no need to worry, Lemon,” Jack assured her. “I simply needed to convince him that I had a girlfriend because he has a daughter that he has been trying to get me involved with for years. I have been making excuses since the beginning, but I hope that the thought that I have a serious girlfriend will finally put an end to this.”
Liz blinked in surprise several times before she found her words. “Wait, you’ve been avoiding a woman? Is that even possible?” she asked skeptically.
“Trust me, if you had seen her, you would avoid her too,” Jack informed her.
“What, is she ugly?” Liz asked jokingly.
“Very.”
“Jeez, Jack, I was kidding! You’re so shallow.”
“All men are shallow, Lemon. Any man who denies his shallowness is simply lying,” Jack told her as if it was a piece of common knowledge that she should already know.
Liz frowned in skeptical disbelief. “I’m pretty sure they’re not all shallow,” she said.
Jack scoffed at her assertion. “Lemon, are you seriously suggesting that you know more about the male psyche than I do?” he asked condescendingly. Liz shrugged.
“I guess not,” she said. “Well then, you must just be really bad at denying your shallowness,” she concluded, vaguely hoping to somehow puncture his pride. It was an ill-conceived plan, of course. No one could wound Jack Donaghy’s pride.
“I see no reason to deny who I am, especially for something as trivial as that,” Jack said dismissively.
“Trivial? You know, you’re lucky that I’m not your real girlfriend. I probably would have punched you by now.”
“If you were really my girlfriend, we would not be discussing this right now.”
“Hey, what happened to not denying who you are?”
“I’m not saying that I would deny it. I’m simply stating that this is not a topic one usually wants to discuss with their lover. Men do not want their woman to realize how shallow they are, and women do not want to know how shallow their man is.”
“I dunno, we’re pretty weird. We might still be talking about it,” Liz said thoughtfully.
“Very true,” Jack conceded. “Given your neuroses, you probably wouldn’t follow the pattern of most women.”
“Jeez, you just love doing that, don’t you?” Liz sighed exasperatedly.
Jack raised an eyebrow curiously. “Doing what?”
“That thing that you do where you say something and then I don’t know whether I should feel flattered or insulted by it. Or both.”
“Lemon, the world is not black and white, and you should stop trying to see it as such,” Jack stated in his annoyingly-patronizing tone. “I do not try to ensure that every one of my comments can only be understood in one manner, as that is not the way that most of the world works. Now, perhaps to you, I should only speak in the least complicated manner and-”
“All right, all right, I get it,” Liz snapped impatiently.
A silence overtook the dancing pair. They circled around the dance floor, Liz stumbling often over one thing or another. Jack was starting to get the impression that her mind was somewhere else. Despite her self-proclaimed lack of dancing talent, there was something about her that was clearly not thinking about dancing. After catching her as one foot tripped over her other foot, Jack couldn’t contain his curiosity of her thoughts.
“What are you thinking about, Lemon?” he asked. A light flush crept across Liz’s face.
“What? Nothing. I’m not thinking about anything. My mind is… blank,” she finished lamely, hoping that he wouldn’t notice her rather pitiful response. Jack saw right through her and looked at her disbelievingly. She sighed. “Fine, you want to know what I was thinking? Then you have to promise me you won’t laugh. Because you’re the one who wanted to know. So. Yeah.”
Jack thought for a moment, considering whether this probably-very-interesting insight into Liz’s mind was worth the promise of not laughing at it. He decided it would be worth it. “Fine, I promise,” he said. “What is it?” Liz hesitated for another second, looking for a moment like she wasn’t going to tell him anyway.
“I was just thinking that we would probably be the strangest couple ever,” she told him. Before he could say anything, she rushed on, “Not that I think that would be, like, a good idea or anything. So you don’t have to give your whole ‘My God, Lemon, you’re really in love with me’ speech because I’m not. I was just thinking.”
“Don’t worry Lemon, I had no intention of giving you a speech,” Jack assured her. A silent “Oh” passed over Liz’s face. “So would ‘strange’ be such a bad thing?” Jack asked curiously. Liz shrugged.
“I don’t know. Probably not. I mean, I don’t think it… wait a minute,” Liz stopped, eyeing Jack suspiciously.
Jack frowned curiously at her sudden change in demeanor. “What is it?” he asked, confused. Liz still looked at him like she was surveying an enemy.
“You’re not acting like Jack,” she started. “I mention the thought of us as a couple and you didn’t scold, dismiss, or mock me. What are you trying to do?”
“Good Lord, Lemon, your neuroses are incredibly active tonight,” Jack said. “If I was indeed attempting to seduce you, as you are trying to suggest, this would apparently be a miserable failure since you are clearly not interested in pursuing such activities with me. As you know, I never fail miserably; therefore, I am not attempting to seduce you.”
“Somehow, that’s not very comforting. And it’s also slightly insulting.”
“Just relax, Lemon. I would be doing things very differently if I was attempting to seduce you.”
Liz still surveyed him slightly suspiciously. “Like what?” she asked.
“Do you really want me to tell you how I would seduce you if I was ever inclined to do so?”
“Yes,” Liz answered with only a small delay. “And stop saying ‘seduce.’”
“Seduce,” Jack said in protest. Liz glared at him, but before she could say anything, he continued, “Well, first, I would take you to some place where there would be food. And good food- I’m not talking about your peasant food that you love so much.”
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with my food.”
“If that’s what you prefer to believe.” Liz’s angry badger face started to appear- no one insulted her food, though it’s not like that had ever stopped Jack before. And it turns out that she wasn’t very good at intimidating Jack into stopping his mockery of her dietary habits. Still. It didn’t make her any less upset that he was insulting her food.
“So I would take you somewhere that you could enjoy a quality meal,” Jack continued. “And also, preferably, where you would wear something more feminine than your work sneakers and your TGS hoodie.”
“Woah, Jack, watch it. You’re liable to give a girl the wrong impression,” Liz stated. This conversation was not helping her like she thought (or hoped) it would.
“I apologize. I’m simply giving you a hypothetical situation in which I would be attempting to attract you; the mere presence of such a situation would naturally assume the fact that I found you attractive and would then desire to see you in more flattering attire.”
“Naturally,” Liz said with a more-than-subtle hint of sarcasm. Jack chose to ignore this.
“After we finished dinner, we would be talking. Perhaps we would be dancing, similar to the way we are now. Then as we were dancing, I would compliment you and tell you that you looked beautiful that evening.”
“Wait- you think I’m beautiful?”
“We’re still speaking hypothetically, Lemon,” Jack reminded her.
“Oh. Right, of course. Sorry.”
“We’d laugh and enjoy ourselves, I’d shower you with compliments, and some time towards the end of the evening, perhaps as I was walking you to you apartment, I’d kiss you. However, I would leave it at that for the evening. I don’t imagine that I would be able to seduce you in one evening. I’d ask if we could do that again, and you would almost certainly answer yes because you would have had a perfectly enjoyable evening. It might have to be repeated several times before I would have successfully seduced you, but there you have it. That is how I would seduce you,” Jack finished very matter-of-factly. Liz just stared at him for a few seconds, trying to measure what he had said.
“You’re so weird,” she finally said. “I can’t believe you’ve thought about that.”
“And I can’t believe you wanted to know,” Jack told her.
Liz gave a conciliatory nod of her head. “Touché,” she said. Then after a pause- “Why are we so weird?”
Jack considered his reply for a moment. “Would you care for me to give you a list of things that Colleen told me during my childhood that shaped the man I am today, and then speculate on what scarring childhood event occurred in the Lemon household that caused you to be this way? Or will you accept the shorter answer; that we simply are.”
Liz shook her head. “The short answer is fine,” she assured him.
“Very well.” With that, the band finished up a song. The pair stopped dancing and turned to lightly applaud before the band started up again. When the band started playing again, Jack and Liz looked at each other somewhat awkwardly. Jack broke the silence. “So what is it that has you so interested in the thought of me seducing you?” he asked Liz curiously. Liz sighed and rolled her eyes.
“Ugh, no, we are so not discussing this,” she said.
“We just were,” Jack pointed out. Liz shook her head.
“No. And there is no reason.”
“I don’t believe that there is absolutely no reason,” Jack informed her. “Although the reason might be slightly subconscious-”
“Jack, seriously, cut it out,” Liz almost whined. “I’m gonna need another drink if you’re going to keep bothering me about this.”
“I’ll go alert the bartender.”
End.