Not Just the Lady at Home Who Watches It (30 Rock, Jack/Liz)
Title: Not Just the Lady at Home Who Watches It
Prompt: 100_situations #058. Survive
Fandom: 30 Rock
Pairing: Jack/Liz
Spoilers: through "Cooter"
Word Count: 2,205
Rating: PG
Warning: There are spoilers for the Sex and the City movie in this fic.
Notes: I think it might seem like I hate SatC, but I do not. I'm not a huge fan, but I'm just saying my mockery of it isn't fueled by true malice.
Table: Number Two.
Summary: Liz is just like Carrie Bradshaw.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue!
*
Liz is just like Carrie Bradshaw. With inexpensive shoes and non-ridiculous clothes.
The first part is Jenna's assessment, the second the qualifier Liz wordlessly adds. Because she's sitting at a table with Jenna and two other Sex and the City fans, so maybe she shouldn't be making fun.
Well, she should. But the other women got pretty pissed off when she did so before and she wants the rest of the brunch to go smoothly.
Let's back up. Liz is here with Jenna and two other Sex and the City fans because Jenna insisted they go see the movie version after a female bonding brunch to which she also invited two ladies whom Liz had never met before. Liz thinks Jenna might have picked them up off the street simply to create a more Sex-like foursome.
"Liz! Tell them how you're like Carrie," Jenna implores her.
All three of them look at her expectantly.
"Um," Liz says. "I did not realize I was."
"Come on," Jenna replies. "You have to see the parallels."
Perhaps this is not the best moment to admit that the one time she flicked by Sex and the City, the lady from Mannequin was getting boffed on a giant swing and it freaked her out. "Um. No, actually." There is silence. "So. Anybody see those pictures of Sarah Jessica Parker with the acorn hat on her head? That's related to the show, right?"
"Jack is totally like Big," Jenna says. "Handsome, rich, masculine, complete dreamboat."
Liz raises her eyebrows. "Dreamboat is a thing people say still? Or ever?"
"You're Carrie," Jenna continues, not answering Liz's query. "And I know this because I've always considered myself a Samantha with a healthy dash of Carrie." She puts her hand over her heart and does her faux bashful smile. "I do have all of Carrie's best qualities."
Liz gives the woman sitting next to her a 'can you believe this guy?' look, but she doesn't react. Liz leans away from her and returns her gaze to Jenna. "And I have her jerk qualities, I guess?"
Jenna shrugs. "Some of them. But that's not the point. The point is that Jack is Big. And you're Carrie, the neurotic writer he loves and wants to spend money on. And the two of you are having a spectacular Manhattan romance. Plus, you did it with him on the first date."
The lady who's next to Liz reacts this time. "Oh, you shouldn't have done that. He's never going to marry you if he thinks you're..." She lowers her voice. "...easy."
"First of all, it was not the first date. We hadn't technically gone out yet." The woman gasps again. She wonders if it would be rude to ask this lady -- and the other one -- to remind her of their names. Because she totally keeps forgetting them. "We've known each other for two years and I've barely slept with any dudes in my whole life, so don't judge me," she snaps.
"I didn't mean to offend you," she mutters. She looks like she's going to cry.
"Um. Okay. I overreacted to... Yeah. Sorry."
"Tell them the story, Liz," Jenna says, "about the first time you got together with your Mr. Big."
Since this makes the almost crying one perk up, Liz decides to acquiesce. "Okay, fine. So, Jack flew back from D.C. -- he was living there for a while because he took a job in the Bush administration after I, um, inadvertently caused him to get demoted because I put his boss into a coma. A diabetic coma." She glances at the two strangers to see if that detail has made her offense less horrifying. She can't tell. "Anyway, he flew back after I called him and said I was thinking about going out with this dude who reminded me of my ex, but not as bad as him, because this new guy had yet to try to throw me in front of a subway train."
While the easily shocked lady gasps again, the other says, 'Kinky.'
"He showed up at my door... Jack, that is, not Dennis or the guy I met who's kind of like Dennis. Um, Dennis is the name of my ex." She's a writer and she can't tell a coherent anecdote about her love life. Sure, she's a comedy writer who's spent most of her career crafting sketches, but still. "So Jack told me that I deserve better. Then he's all, 'Do you know what I'm trying to tell you, Lemon?' and I say 'No,' because I figured it was more than what he was saying, or else he wouldn't have asked me if I got it. And he said that he didn't know how to say it, if I hadn't picked up on it already. Then he took out a pad and tried to write something on it with a straightened-out paperclip."
Three raised eyebrows between the two strangers.
"Because he didn't have pens where he worked at the time and the security people would confiscate any pens that he'd bring in because they weren't Government Issue, so he'd forget to carry pens around. Even now he sometimes forgets, and he hasn't worked there for a couple of months. But, anyway, so he ripped the paper with the paperclip and cursed at it, and I said, 'Do you want a pen?' and then he leaned in and kissed me. It wasn't much, like he barely pressed his lips against mine, but I just sort of got it? You know, it. The whole Jack thing. I mean, why people would be attracted to him. So he kissed me and I didn't pull away, which is what I thought I'd do if Jack tried to kiss me. Because I thought he was going to kiss me once, not because I wanted..."
She doesn't know why she's starting on her 'I was not attracted to Jack' thing when she's obviously changed her mind.
"So, anyway. I didn't pull away and he didn't pull back so we were close-mouthed kissing and it got a little weird. Then he put his arms around me and poked me with the paperclip, and he pulled back and asked me if I was okay, and I said yeah, because it didn't break the skin or anything..."
She's now realizing it might have been a good idea to edit that part out.
"So he's looking at me, and I knew I had to do something, right? Because he didn't kiss me for any reason other than he wanted to. So I said, 'You're a great friend, Jack,' and he frowned, I guess because he thought I was going to reject him. And I didn't know how to say that I wasn't rejecting him because it seemed way too sudden to put into words. You know? Like out of nowhere I was in love with this guy--"
The one next to her lets out an 'Awww.'
"--or had just figured it out because it's not like he kissed me once and... anyway, I knew what I felt and I didn't know how to tell him, even if I thought he wanted to hear it. So I kissed him. And that makes sense, right, because he kissed me instead of saying it. Like, neither of us knew what to say. Then... other things happened." She pauses. "I'm not going to talk about the doing it part. And it was a lot more romantic than I may have made it sound. Not the doing it, because I'm not talking about that. But the other stuff. More romantic than it may have sounded. Because I'm bad at telling stories about stuff like that, apparently." She lets out a small, slow sigh. "Why did I tell you all that?"
"Because we're bonding," Jenna says.
"Anyway. I'm not like Carrie. And Jack is like Jack. Not Big."
"Well," the non-gasper says, "I hope he's at least big in the most important way."
"Miurt."
*
"It was so awful," Liz says, taking the glass of wine Jack offers her before he sits down next to her on the couch. "I thought I'd never get through it."
"Really?"
"Really. Really, really. Jenna kept comparing me to Carrie and making me tell stories about our relationship and some lady kept asking me about your penis and then, after I'd finally answered that question, she started asking me if you 'take care of business downtown' and I said we both work in Midtown, and that's apparently slang for some gross sex thing, so now they think I'm a fetishist. Well, the strangers Jenna made me hang out with think I am. Jenna knows me better, but I don't want strangers thinking I'm into whatever I am apparently into. Then we saw the movie and it was two and a half hours long. All the Sex and the City ladies were walking around in giant heels like, all the time, and it made my feet hurt just watching them. They never wore jeans. Never. Always these super expensive designer clothes. There were long fashion montages, and the most important thing in the world was getting a closet. A big one for all the clothes and shoes and other crap they bought, I guess, but mostly the clothes and shoes. And they kept talking about doing it and it was so gross."
Jack looks positively solemn. "It sounds like a harrowing experience."
"Don't make fun of me."
"I am doing nothing of the sort. I wouldn't enjoy having someone who's barely an acquaintance harass me about your breasts and then force me to watch a sexually explicit fashion show. That--" He lets out a breath. "--is essentially what happened the evening we spent at Karl Rove's house."
"That's why you disappeared for an hour? And I thought I had it bad talking to Michelle Malkin for thirty minutes straight."
"To be perfectly honest, you probably had a more awful time."
"Really?"
"There's a reason why Michelle and I only went on six dates."
"Ew."
"You can't say 'ew' about all my ex-girlfriends; it's unbecoming of a woman who's two decades away from her teens."
"Hey, I'll decide what becomes me. And I don't. Not all of them. And if you didn't want me to ew any of them, you should've dated better ladies or been more selective. But, you know, now you have me, so all your troubles are over." She says this facetiously, but it causes him to genuinely smile. "I was kidding."
"You shouldn't have been. Have more confidence in your ability to make me happy, Lemon; I certainly have confidence in my ability to make you happy."
"Okay, I will and, okay, you should. But it's not like all your problems are over. I still have problems."
"Yes, of course. But aren't said problems easier to deal with when someone who understands you is consistently around to listen to your complaints and make you a sandwich at four in the morning when you can't get back to sleep because you had a nightmare which eerily resembles the actual events of your life?"
That is entirely her fantasy for a perfect relationship and, holy crap, it's what she has -- Jack puts together a great Turkey Club, which is not a euphemism -- so she nods. This, them, what they have going is so much better than running -- while wearing heels -- after some dude who seems not to know what he wants. Jack definitely knows what he wants. Jack is more the Carrie in their relationship and she's the sometimes afraid of commitment Mr. Big and, ugh, she's thinking in Sex and the City terms. But, just for the record:
"You don't plan on jerking me around for ten years and then leaving me at the altar, do you?"
"No, I can't say that I do," he says. "And you?"
"Not in my vision of the future, no." He's looking at her like he's thinking about something. He tilts his head. She tilts hers. "You're not going to change your answer, are you? Because I'm not taking you back, I don't care if I find you in the closet with a pair of my shoes."
"No, I'm not changing my answer. Nor am I intending to get in any closets to spend time with your shoes. It's that my curiosity was piqued by a comment you made before."
"Yeah?"
"I was wondering what you said to them. About my penis."
"Um. Nothing. The first five times." She takes a big sip of her wine. Mutters, "Then I said it was awesome."
He nods. "If I must have my manhood described in surfer slang, I suppose that's the most accurate and complimentary term to use."
"And that's why I described your penis in the way I did," Liz says haltingly. "I can't believe people expect me to talk about sex."
"I don't. It's so much more enjoyable to have sex than to spend hours discussing it."
"This," she says. "This is why I like you."
"I like you, too."
"Of course you do. I don't walk around wearing stupid hats."
"What?"
"Never mind."
END
Prompt: 100_situations #058. Survive
Fandom: 30 Rock
Pairing: Jack/Liz
Spoilers: through "Cooter"
Word Count: 2,205
Rating: PG
Warning: There are spoilers for the Sex and the City movie in this fic.
Notes: I think it might seem like I hate SatC, but I do not. I'm not a huge fan, but I'm just saying my mockery of it isn't fueled by true malice.
Table: Number Two.
Summary: Liz is just like Carrie Bradshaw.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue!
*
Liz is just like Carrie Bradshaw. With inexpensive shoes and non-ridiculous clothes.
The first part is Jenna's assessment, the second the qualifier Liz wordlessly adds. Because she's sitting at a table with Jenna and two other Sex and the City fans, so maybe she shouldn't be making fun.
Well, she should. But the other women got pretty pissed off when she did so before and she wants the rest of the brunch to go smoothly.
Let's back up. Liz is here with Jenna and two other Sex and the City fans because Jenna insisted they go see the movie version after a female bonding brunch to which she also invited two ladies whom Liz had never met before. Liz thinks Jenna might have picked them up off the street simply to create a more Sex-like foursome.
"Liz! Tell them how you're like Carrie," Jenna implores her.
All three of them look at her expectantly.
"Um," Liz says. "I did not realize I was."
"Come on," Jenna replies. "You have to see the parallels."
Perhaps this is not the best moment to admit that the one time she flicked by Sex and the City, the lady from Mannequin was getting boffed on a giant swing and it freaked her out. "Um. No, actually." There is silence. "So. Anybody see those pictures of Sarah Jessica Parker with the acorn hat on her head? That's related to the show, right?"
"Jack is totally like Big," Jenna says. "Handsome, rich, masculine, complete dreamboat."
Liz raises her eyebrows. "Dreamboat is a thing people say still? Or ever?"
"You're Carrie," Jenna continues, not answering Liz's query. "And I know this because I've always considered myself a Samantha with a healthy dash of Carrie." She puts her hand over her heart and does her faux bashful smile. "I do have all of Carrie's best qualities."
Liz gives the woman sitting next to her a 'can you believe this guy?' look, but she doesn't react. Liz leans away from her and returns her gaze to Jenna. "And I have her jerk qualities, I guess?"
Jenna shrugs. "Some of them. But that's not the point. The point is that Jack is Big. And you're Carrie, the neurotic writer he loves and wants to spend money on. And the two of you are having a spectacular Manhattan romance. Plus, you did it with him on the first date."
The lady who's next to Liz reacts this time. "Oh, you shouldn't have done that. He's never going to marry you if he thinks you're..." She lowers her voice. "...easy."
"First of all, it was not the first date. We hadn't technically gone out yet." The woman gasps again. She wonders if it would be rude to ask this lady -- and the other one -- to remind her of their names. Because she totally keeps forgetting them. "We've known each other for two years and I've barely slept with any dudes in my whole life, so don't judge me," she snaps.
"I didn't mean to offend you," she mutters. She looks like she's going to cry.
"Um. Okay. I overreacted to... Yeah. Sorry."
"Tell them the story, Liz," Jenna says, "about the first time you got together with your Mr. Big."
Since this makes the almost crying one perk up, Liz decides to acquiesce. "Okay, fine. So, Jack flew back from D.C. -- he was living there for a while because he took a job in the Bush administration after I, um, inadvertently caused him to get demoted because I put his boss into a coma. A diabetic coma." She glances at the two strangers to see if that detail has made her offense less horrifying. She can't tell. "Anyway, he flew back after I called him and said I was thinking about going out with this dude who reminded me of my ex, but not as bad as him, because this new guy had yet to try to throw me in front of a subway train."
While the easily shocked lady gasps again, the other says, 'Kinky.'
"He showed up at my door... Jack, that is, not Dennis or the guy I met who's kind of like Dennis. Um, Dennis is the name of my ex." She's a writer and she can't tell a coherent anecdote about her love life. Sure, she's a comedy writer who's spent most of her career crafting sketches, but still. "So Jack told me that I deserve better. Then he's all, 'Do you know what I'm trying to tell you, Lemon?' and I say 'No,' because I figured it was more than what he was saying, or else he wouldn't have asked me if I got it. And he said that he didn't know how to say it, if I hadn't picked up on it already. Then he took out a pad and tried to write something on it with a straightened-out paperclip."
Three raised eyebrows between the two strangers.
"Because he didn't have pens where he worked at the time and the security people would confiscate any pens that he'd bring in because they weren't Government Issue, so he'd forget to carry pens around. Even now he sometimes forgets, and he hasn't worked there for a couple of months. But, anyway, so he ripped the paper with the paperclip and cursed at it, and I said, 'Do you want a pen?' and then he leaned in and kissed me. It wasn't much, like he barely pressed his lips against mine, but I just sort of got it? You know, it. The whole Jack thing. I mean, why people would be attracted to him. So he kissed me and I didn't pull away, which is what I thought I'd do if Jack tried to kiss me. Because I thought he was going to kiss me once, not because I wanted..."
She doesn't know why she's starting on her 'I was not attracted to Jack' thing when she's obviously changed her mind.
"So, anyway. I didn't pull away and he didn't pull back so we were close-mouthed kissing and it got a little weird. Then he put his arms around me and poked me with the paperclip, and he pulled back and asked me if I was okay, and I said yeah, because it didn't break the skin or anything..."
She's now realizing it might have been a good idea to edit that part out.
"So he's looking at me, and I knew I had to do something, right? Because he didn't kiss me for any reason other than he wanted to. So I said, 'You're a great friend, Jack,' and he frowned, I guess because he thought I was going to reject him. And I didn't know how to say that I wasn't rejecting him because it seemed way too sudden to put into words. You know? Like out of nowhere I was in love with this guy--"
The one next to her lets out an 'Awww.'
"--or had just figured it out because it's not like he kissed me once and... anyway, I knew what I felt and I didn't know how to tell him, even if I thought he wanted to hear it. So I kissed him. And that makes sense, right, because he kissed me instead of saying it. Like, neither of us knew what to say. Then... other things happened." She pauses. "I'm not going to talk about the doing it part. And it was a lot more romantic than I may have made it sound. Not the doing it, because I'm not talking about that. But the other stuff. More romantic than it may have sounded. Because I'm bad at telling stories about stuff like that, apparently." She lets out a small, slow sigh. "Why did I tell you all that?"
"Because we're bonding," Jenna says.
"Anyway. I'm not like Carrie. And Jack is like Jack. Not Big."
"Well," the non-gasper says, "I hope he's at least big in the most important way."
"Miurt."
*
"It was so awful," Liz says, taking the glass of wine Jack offers her before he sits down next to her on the couch. "I thought I'd never get through it."
"Really?"
"Really. Really, really. Jenna kept comparing me to Carrie and making me tell stories about our relationship and some lady kept asking me about your penis and then, after I'd finally answered that question, she started asking me if you 'take care of business downtown' and I said we both work in Midtown, and that's apparently slang for some gross sex thing, so now they think I'm a fetishist. Well, the strangers Jenna made me hang out with think I am. Jenna knows me better, but I don't want strangers thinking I'm into whatever I am apparently into. Then we saw the movie and it was two and a half hours long. All the Sex and the City ladies were walking around in giant heels like, all the time, and it made my feet hurt just watching them. They never wore jeans. Never. Always these super expensive designer clothes. There were long fashion montages, and the most important thing in the world was getting a closet. A big one for all the clothes and shoes and other crap they bought, I guess, but mostly the clothes and shoes. And they kept talking about doing it and it was so gross."
Jack looks positively solemn. "It sounds like a harrowing experience."
"Don't make fun of me."
"I am doing nothing of the sort. I wouldn't enjoy having someone who's barely an acquaintance harass me about your breasts and then force me to watch a sexually explicit fashion show. That--" He lets out a breath. "--is essentially what happened the evening we spent at Karl Rove's house."
"That's why you disappeared for an hour? And I thought I had it bad talking to Michelle Malkin for thirty minutes straight."
"To be perfectly honest, you probably had a more awful time."
"Really?"
"There's a reason why Michelle and I only went on six dates."
"Ew."
"You can't say 'ew' about all my ex-girlfriends; it's unbecoming of a woman who's two decades away from her teens."
"Hey, I'll decide what becomes me. And I don't. Not all of them. And if you didn't want me to ew any of them, you should've dated better ladies or been more selective. But, you know, now you have me, so all your troubles are over." She says this facetiously, but it causes him to genuinely smile. "I was kidding."
"You shouldn't have been. Have more confidence in your ability to make me happy, Lemon; I certainly have confidence in my ability to make you happy."
"Okay, I will and, okay, you should. But it's not like all your problems are over. I still have problems."
"Yes, of course. But aren't said problems easier to deal with when someone who understands you is consistently around to listen to your complaints and make you a sandwich at four in the morning when you can't get back to sleep because you had a nightmare which eerily resembles the actual events of your life?"
That is entirely her fantasy for a perfect relationship and, holy crap, it's what she has -- Jack puts together a great Turkey Club, which is not a euphemism -- so she nods. This, them, what they have going is so much better than running -- while wearing heels -- after some dude who seems not to know what he wants. Jack definitely knows what he wants. Jack is more the Carrie in their relationship and she's the sometimes afraid of commitment Mr. Big and, ugh, she's thinking in Sex and the City terms. But, just for the record:
"You don't plan on jerking me around for ten years and then leaving me at the altar, do you?"
"No, I can't say that I do," he says. "And you?"
"Not in my vision of the future, no." He's looking at her like he's thinking about something. He tilts his head. She tilts hers. "You're not going to change your answer, are you? Because I'm not taking you back, I don't care if I find you in the closet with a pair of my shoes."
"No, I'm not changing my answer. Nor am I intending to get in any closets to spend time with your shoes. It's that my curiosity was piqued by a comment you made before."
"Yeah?"
"I was wondering what you said to them. About my penis."
"Um. Nothing. The first five times." She takes a big sip of her wine. Mutters, "Then I said it was awesome."
He nods. "If I must have my manhood described in surfer slang, I suppose that's the most accurate and complimentary term to use."
"And that's why I described your penis in the way I did," Liz says haltingly. "I can't believe people expect me to talk about sex."
"I don't. It's so much more enjoyable to have sex than to spend hours discussing it."
"This," she says. "This is why I like you."
"I like you, too."
"Of course you do. I don't walk around wearing stupid hats."
"What?"
"Never mind."
END