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chapter six: father knows best

a/n:

filler, but make it depressing.

fuck oliver myrtle. all my homies hate oliver myrtle.

tw(s) -- mentions of alcohol, a fatphobic comment, classist views, an ableist comment (in reference to mental illness), lots of french bashing, child abuse, and just a lot of rudeness.

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Just like he promised he would, Oliver takes them to a nice restaurant later that evening. A steakhouse in West Beverly Hills with a hefty price tag and the lighting of a nightclub her father is far too old for. A DJ she's never heard of plays music as they check their coats and, while Bombay looks around in pure amazement, the rest of Team USA has a much more muted response. (Rory will choose to believe its because they're also unimpressed by the DJ and not because she spent an entire hour before they got here running around like a chicken without a head, nearly choking Charlie to death as she tied his tie too tight while reassuring Connie that she was perfectly fine, thank you very much.)

They get seated at one of the larger tables dotted about the room and her father, at the head, insists she sits next to him. He orders appetizers for them before most of the kids can even open their menus, and his first cocktail of the night before any of them have even decided what to drink.

Averman, who sits on the other side of her, taps his foot restlessly under the table.

"This place is nuts." Jesse intends for it to be a quip to Charlie, but Adam's hiss of his name alerts everyone to the fact that it was him who said it.

"No, no," Bombay soothes, "he's right. This place is insane-- Mr. Myrtle, where'd you hear of this place? I didn't recognize the name?"

"Ah, well, of course, you wouldn't recognize it." He takes a sip of his drink. Rory winces behind her menu. "But my sister told me about it. She lives out here with her husband and runs a boutique on Rodeo Drive-- have you been to see her?"

Rory shakes her head. "I haven't had the time."

"Well, make the time. She's family."

"Yes, sir." Her gaze flickers up to briefly meet Bombay's. "I'll figure it out."

"Good."

Without precedent, Oliver reaches over to turn her attention away from the pasta dishes. "Carbs will make you fat, Lola." He chastises her and points to the fish section. "Lean protein."

(Lean proteins for muscle repair and intermittent carbs for fuel. It was the mantra of her childhood.)

Closing her eyes, she takes a deep breath in. This is going to be a long, long night.

From down the length of the table, both Connie and Julie glare at her oblivious father with blinding hatred. Averman places a hand on her knee and, even if it's too warm, she slides her hand over it and squeezes.

Charlie clears his throat. "We, uh, wanted to thank you," He starts with prompting from Bombay, "for taking us out. Sir."

"Oh, there's no need to thank me, boy. It's not every day I get to dine with champions--"

Rory cuts in gently. "We haven't won yet, dad."

" --besides, Lola doesn't have any friends back home, so when will I get another chance like this?"

"Dad."

"What? You don't." Oliver shrugs. "Well, you had one, once, didn't you? The Canadian? God, her father was a loonie, wasn't he?"

"He's mentally ill, dad." The words come as a murmur and with a silent plea that God smites her.

"Well, still a charming bunch of individuals, that lot." He pauses to finish off his glass. "I suppose I did like that boy you pretended to date, even if he was French."

And Averman can't help himself anymore. "Didn't you marry a French woman?"

The energy around the table evaporates into thin air as Oliver turns his attention to the redhead seated beside his daughter. Guy groans quietly at his friend, and Jesse looks like he might kick him, and Rory just squeezes his hand so tightly he flinches.

"Sorry, it was just that, y'know, Rory told me I wasn't allowed to make any French jokes because of your ex-wife."

"She did, did she?"

"I, uh, did, yeah."

"Hm, do you fancy yourself a comedian... What's your name?"

"Lester Averman, sir."

"Lester?" Oliver's voice twinges with mirth. "Well, do you fancy yourself a comedian, Lester?"

"I mean, I like to think I provide the team with some much-needed comedic relief."

"Go on, then, Lester. Give us a joke about the French."

Rory squeezes his hand even harder and leans toward her father. "Dad, please--"

"No, it's fine." Averman assures her and then swallows thickly. "Uh, how do you know a Frenchman has been in your backyard?"

She cringes and braces for the impact of the joke.

"No. How do I know?"

"Your garbage can is empty and your dog is pregnant."

There's a beat but then Oliver laughs. The sound comes from his belly, a big grin on his face as he slaps a palm down on the surface of the table.

"My, my, you're bloody brilliant-- crude, but brilliant."

They're interrupted by the arrival of the appetizers and bread, and Rory can breathe again.

She resignedly orders sea bass and hands her menu over. Everyone else (except for Luis, who gets ceviche, and Connie, who orders chicken out of protest of Oliver's treatment of Rory) orders some sort of steak with reassurance from her father.

What's the point of having this much money if you don't spend it?

Bombay gracefully distracts Oliver with questions about business, allowing the kids to talk amongst themselves as they pick over food they've never seen before.

"I'm sorry." Averman says quietly. "I didn't want to piss him off or anything. I just hate the way he speaks to you."

"It's okay. He thought you were funny."

"He thought my name was funny."

"Yeah, well, your name is kinda funny." She jokes quietly, and he smiles. "Have you ever had tuna tartare?"

"Tuna what now?"

Rory gestures to the plate on the table. "Tuna tartare. It's like steak tartare but made with tuna."

"At the risk of sounding stupid-- steak tartare?"

She smiles and shakes her head. "It's a French thing. It's high quality, raw meat mixed with all sorts of things to make it taste good."

"...why though? Can't you just eat cooked meat?"

"It's a delicacy." Rory shrugs. Turning back to the table, she grabs a chip and scoops some of the tartare from the pile.

"Is that short for 'I'm not explaining this to you because it's so above your pay grade'? Or, do you just not know the full story?"

"I don't know the full story, but, from what I understand, this is all above everybody's pay grade."

He thinks about that for a moment before nodding. "Yeah. You're right."

"So, how about it? Wanna try?"

Rory waves the chip in his face. He watches it dedicatedly.

"I don't know..."

"Wouldn't thou like to live deliciously?"

"Okay, now I feel like I'm about to be poisoned."

"Do you really think I'd poison you?" She tilts her head, eyes narrowed slightly.

"Would you?"

Rory pretends to think about it, tapping her chin and humming for effect. "Hm, maybe, but not in front of this many people."

Averman cracks a grin but takes the chip from her and eats it. She watches his face change as he processes what he's just put in his mouth.

"So?" She asks once he swallows.

His nose wrinkled. "I... don't enjoy that."

"That's fine." Rory smiles and nudges him with her elbow. "We just have to refine your palate."

Averman lifts a brow but she's already too busy making plans to show him a world so far removed from his culinary comfort zone to notice.

The entrees come with a relative swiftness. Rory finds that her fish dish certainly pales in comparison to the magnificent things that her teammates have ordered but she cuts into it without a verbal complaint. Her teammates' collective happiness is enough to make her forget about how hungry she is and how she actually detests white meat fish.

With the food, though, comes more small talk from her socially deficient father.

"So, there was an awful lot about you kids in the papers, but not a lot about you." He does a sweeping gesture from the new kids to the ducks with his steak knife in hand.

Rory shifts back in her seat to avoid it.

"Tell me about yourselves."

Guy breaks the silence. "Well, uh, my dad's a construction worker--"

Oliver chokes on his (fourth) drink and sputters through a laugh.

All of the blood drains from Rory's face.

"Wait? Really?" Her father asks, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "He's just-- are all of your parents...?"

Suddenly, she finds herself staring at her food as if it was the most interesting thing to ever grace the face of the planet.

(Does he have to be so condescending all the time?)

(Does he always have to make everyone hate her by association?)

"My dad's a litigator," Adam chews on the inside of his cheek, "Kenny's mom's big in advertising, and Dwayne's parents own a ranch, but other than that? Yeah."

"Huh..." Oliver's tongue glides along his teeth.

"Isn't that cool, dad?" She prompts weakly. "How we all come from different backgrounds?"

"Yes, yes-- I suppose that this is really a true representation of America."

The team gives him scattered, hesitant smiles and nods.

Rory sighs shortly knowing that it wasn't a compliment.

Conversation seems to hit a wall there. The rest of dinner is held in silence, the space words would've taken being filled by the performers that had long been ignored, and Rory wonders, bleakly, whether or not she prefers it this way. After they've eaten, Oliver offers to buy them dessert to go so they can still meet their curfew time, but they decline politely and, giving their thanks, they depart from the table.

All of them but Rory, who gets asked to stay behind by her father.

He's quiet as he reads over the bill. She can see in his face that he's tipsy -- his skin is waxy, and he keeps bringing the bill up to his face to read it. When he slips his card into the fold and hands it off to the waiter, she finds the courage to speak.

"That went well. Really well. I'm surprised."

She tries to swallow past the lump in her throat and glances around the room. He doesn't say anything.

"I had very little faith that they'd behave themselves."

"They're poor." He says it so coolly that Rory freezes. "They're poor, and you like them."

Immediately, she denies it. She shakes her head and tries one of his dry chuckles on for size.

"Dad, I--"

"That boy was holding your hand, and you were flirting with him. Did you think that I wouldn't notice?"

Rory cringes, subtly. (The chuckle, like all things Myrtle, was too big for her frame.) Oliver grabs her chin firmly and forces her to face him.

He doesn't speak again until she opens her eyes. "You're getting soft, Lorelei. Attached. You cannot get attached to these kids."

"I'm not." Her voice breaks, giving her away.

Rory knows her father's never been able to love anything. Not the right way, anyway.

"I want you to listen to me and I want you to listen clearly, alright?" (To any bystander, this must look like a sweet interaction between a father and his daughter. The proximity between his hand and her throat wouldn't make any of them squirm.) "None of them actually wants to be your friend."

Oliver Myrtle has never been able to look at something he loved and resist the urge to kick it just to see if it would come back to him.

"They only want you because your wealth and status are shiny and new. The moment they realize you are not their equal and think that you are no longer beneficial to them, you will be left behind."

And, because she's never known anything else, and because she loves him in the way a beaten dog will still sit at the feet of the person who beats it, she'll always come back. She'll give in and bow her head as he cards his fingers through her hair.

"Do you understand me?"

Rory blinks back tears. He hates it when she cries, and she doesn't want to get in any more trouble tonight. "Dad, please--"

"Don't beg me, Lorelei. It's unbecoming of you."

"Sorry."

He just stares at her, and she looks at him like the sad, little dog they both know she is.

"Do you understand?" He repeats himself.

"Yes, sir."

Oliver releases her chin and pats her cheek condescendingly. "Good girl."

Rory's entire body trembles as she corrals back her emotions and forces herself to breathe. The waiter finally returns with her father's card, and he leaves as quickly as he came, unaware of what just transpired.

"You know I'm only saying this because I love you, right?"

"Yes."

"I love you, and I know what's best for you."

"I know. I love you, too."

Oliver brushes a hair behind her ear. She can hear him telling her that she hides her face too often even if he doesn't say it.

"Oh, and one last thing before I go-- Krystal is pregnant, and she will not be bullied into getting rid of it."

What a poor soul. Not even a person, yet, and already despised.

(These must've been the unforeseen circumstances he mentioned.)

"We're to be wed as soon as you return from the games." He adjusts the cuffs of his suit. "She wants you to be her maid of honor, but I figured that it would be best coming from me."

Numbly, Rory nods. "Okay... I'll call her."

"Good."

He kisses her on the temple before he bids her goodbye, but she's too busy wondering if this is how Fredo Corleone felt when he had his brother's hands around his throat to respond.

Oliver is gone when she makes it out to the lobby. So are most of the team.

Dean lingers by the bowl of free mints and looks up as she approaches.

"Hey."

"Hi." She sniffles.

Her attempt to push past him is thwarted when he grabs her by the bicep and pulls her back to stand in front of him.

"Don't go out there yet."

"Why not?"

"Because you're about to cry and there are a bunch of people with cameras outside who are ready to exploit that."

"I'm not about to cry." Rory insists, but her voice cracks and her bottom lip trembles. "I'm not."

"Yeah, you are."

"We're going to be late..." She says weakly.

Dean shrugs. "Who cares? Look, I don't really know you, but I do know that you've been acting even weirder ever since your dad got here. Just-- don't let him get to you, alright? Dads suck, but they suck even more when you let it get to you."

Staring at the floor, Rory nods and wipes her cheeks, and the two of them stand there until she isn't quite so emotional.

The bus is quiet when they board and the driver takes off almost immediately after they're seated.

She wrings her fingers after she takes the empty seat next to Averman. "I'm, uh, really sorry, you guys. He just... I'm sorry."

"Hey, don't even worry about it."

"Yeah." Charlie piggybacks off Guy, sitting up to look at them over the back of the seat in front of them. "My dad was such a jerk that my mom walked out on him."

Adam leans over the seat, too, and speaks much quieter. "My dad's just like yours."

She glances between the two of them owlishly.

"Oh, wow, you guys should form some sort of club." Jesse snorts from somewhere else on the bus.

Averman cackled. "A bad dads club? That's rich."

"Yeah." Rory bites back a grin. Her eyes drift across the aisle. "What about it, Portman?"

"No. You're not involving me in your weird bullshit, I was just trying to be a decent guy--"

"Oh, come on, Dean. Please?"

He looks at Rory and sighs shortly through his nose. "Fine... a bad dad's club."

She laughs, her tears drying up.

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At around eleven o'clock, after a shower and a very long talk with her roommates about how she should feel beautiful in her own skin no matter what her father says, Rory sneaks out of her room with some money in her pocket. Down the hall, loud rock music comes from Dean and Fulton's room -- something she doesn't quite recognize -- and a few kids poke their heads out of their rooms in search of what's going on. Jesse is the only other person actively outside of their room and he's too busy marching toward the boys' dorm to notice her.

Closing her door behind her quietly, she takes a few steps in the direction of the elevator as sneakily as she can.

Obviously not sneaky enough, though, because someone notices her right away.

"Hey, where are you sneaking off to, Rapunzel?"

Rory slowly swivels on her heel to look at Averman.

"I was going to go to the seven-eleven down the block and get a slurpee-- I can't fall asleep."

"Yeah, well, it's not exactly like everyone's being sung a lullaby." He gestures with his thumb to Dean and Fulton's door.

Jesse, exhausted, knocks angrily while he rubs his eyes.

She breathes a laugh. The girl who grew up sleeping on airplanes and on chairs in conference rooms has very little trouble falling asleep to loud sounds.

"I couldn't sleep even if they were being quiet..." (Her father's words have carved themselves into her skull so that she just can't forget them, no matter how much she tries.) "Do you want to come with me?"

I can't be alone right now. I don't want to be alone right now.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Need a big strong man to defend me from the criminals who walk these streets, don't I?"

Realistically, there's so much police presence that she wouldn't have been bothered at all, but he doesn't need to know that.

Averman flushes and adjusts his glasses. "Well, I, uh, I guess-- let me go get my shoes."

Smiling softly, she leans against the wall and waits for him to come back.

(You're getting attached, her father had said. Maybe he was correct. But, what her father doesn't know can't hurt him, right?)

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a/n:

this was a good chapter for the 'shipping rory with everyone' community, wasn't it?

a lot of this is set up for d3. it'll make sense later.

comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and I cannot stress how much they motivate me to continue! thank you