A TINY LITTLE FUZZY
Pairing: L/L friendship
Spoilers: Everything up until 'Snowed Inn'
Teaser: Luke remembers past dinners with his girls.
Archive: Absotively posolutely! Just let me know where!
Disclaimer: I wish upon wish, I hope upon hope.that these characters
belonged to me. But they don't. Which is good because if houseplants are
anything to go by, I'd kill them anyway.
Note: Yup, my first GG fic!! I was inspired, you might say, by Pixie's
fic, and the previews for next week's ep. I missed a lot of season 1, so
if there is info that I got wrong, please let me know.
More Notes: Probably the first ficlet in a series, if there is enough
interest.
Feedback: Oh please oh please. Let me know if I suck or not. With an
emphasis on the "or not" kind of feedback. (:
December 12th, 1985.
Stars Hollow, Connecticut.
Nineteen-year-old Lucas Danes leaned against the outside wall of
William's Hardware, getting some air. It was the middle of December, and
so the air was painfully cold, but at least it was _outside_. He loved his
dad, but things had been strained ever since mom.well, ever since the
previous November. And now with his sister and her new husband, and her
new kid here.it was open season for the Traditional Will Danes Furious
Rants. There was only so much ranting a son could put up with.
Something in the store behind him crashed, and Luke winced. Dad was
going to give himself a heart-attack one of these days if he wasn't
careful. The teen took another swallow from his coke and slid down the
wall until he was sitting on the sidewalk, long legs stretched in front of
him. He'd been working since six a.m. and his back, to put it mildly,
hurt.
The glass door to the store flew open with an accompanying tinkle of
bells, narrowly missing him. Luke shied away from it. "Hey, watch it
there, Liz!"
His tiny, fragile-looking sister looked down at him in surprise. "Luke!
Dammit! I'm going, okay? Do you want to come with me to say goodbye to
Steve?"
He tried not to smirk. He really did. But he was apparently
unsuccessful, because Liz stomped her foot in fury, disturbing the sleeping
infant in her arms. "Dad's turned you against him, too, huh? Lucas, he's
your brother-in-law - get used to it!"
Luke rambled to his feet. "Dad didn't have to turn me against Steve -
Steve did it just fine on his own."
Liz tilted her chin up defiantly. "Fine, then. We're flying to Chicago
in the morning, but I think we'll clear out of the house tonight. Sleep in
Hartford, I guess." The baby started to whimper, and Liz patted it gently,
trying to quiet it. Luke instantly felt guilty.
"Oh, c'mon Liz. Just stay the night. Dad'll cool down."
"No he won't. You know it."
"Fine." A cold cloud of condensation accompanied the words, and Luke's
shoulder's slumped. "I'd better say good-bye to the kid, then."
His sister smiled sadly, and placed the baby in his arms. "You're a
good uncle, Luke. I wish we could stay longer. But it's too hard."
"Yeah." Fine dark fuzz stuck out from under the knitted cap, and Luke
adjusted it so the baby's tiny ears were covered. "Bye, Jesse. You be
good for your mom, okay?"
His reply was a wide-eyed stare and a little spit bubble. Luke grinned,
then cleared his throat and handed Jess back to his mom. "Take care of
yourself, Liz."
"I will." She rose on tip-toes to kiss his cheek. "You can come and
visit, you know."
Luke snorted. "Yeah, right. If I make enough money for college in the
next two years, I'll be lucky. I don't think I'll be able to afford cross-
country flights any time soon."
"Well, keep it in mind."
"I will. Now, you should get the kid inside, before he catches cold."
Liz nodded, patted his arm, and turned to walk down the street. Luke
watched until she disappeared around a corner, then tossed the remains of
his coke in a trash can. He needed to walk. He still had ten minutes left
for his break. Enough time to get the hell away from the little family
drama that surrounded him.
The Christmas decorations were up around town, replacing the dried
flower arrangements that normally wrapped around light posts, and
mailboxes, and signs, and.now that Luke thought about it, just about
everything in Stars Hollow was normally covered in dried flowers. It made
the town look so.fluffy.
As he walked around the Christmas light-strangled gazebo in the middle
of the park, the Hartford bus pulled up with a belch of brakes. Five
people got off. One of whom was Miss Patty - swathed in an array of
holiday colors, and.were those sequins?
He quickly ducked back behind the gazebo. There was something about
that woman that freaked him out. It was like she undressed him with her
eyes, and for a woman her age to be doing that to a teenager was
just.disturbing.
Once he was sure she was gone, he stood up and peeked around above the
railing. The streets were deserted. All clear.
"It's safe," someone said, directly behind him.
"Gah!" he jumped back, tripped over one of the wintering rose-bushes,
and hit the side of the gazebo. As he struggled to regain his balance, he
stared at his attacker. "Sheeze, where the hell did you come from?"
The girl had the bluest eyes Luke had ever seen. "The bus."
"Ah." They stood sizing each other up for a moment; she clutching a
pile of blankets to her chest, he clutching his chest and willing his
heartbeat to slow. "I wasn't hiding," he finally said defensively.
"Really? Wow, you could have fooled me."
"I wasn't!"
"No?" She leaned a little closer and gave him a sly smile. Luke leaned
back in alarm. "Not even from the 'Mrs. Claus Does Vegas' lady? I swear,
give that woman menacing theme music and you have a new super-villain."
Luke snorted. "Okay, so what if I was?" he challenged.
"Don't worry, I won't say anything. I think you're probably being very
smart. When I got on the bus in Hartford there was a guy about your age
sitting next to her. When I got off.nothing but a drumstick. I think she
had something to do with it."
"You're nuts, you know that?"
She smiled widely. Now that he looked closer, he realized how exhausted
she appeared. Dark rings bruised the skin under her eyes, and her clothing
was mismatched and hardly appropriate for the weather. "I know. Many
people have told me that, many times."
"Okay." Luke pushed away from the gazebo and started walking back
towards the Hardware store. The girl fell in step beside him. "You're
from Hartford?"
She nodded. "Used to be."
"But you're not from there anymore?"
"Nope. I've decided to see if I can be from here, now."
"I don't think that's how it works."
"Sure it is." The bundle of blankets in her arms shifted and yawned,
and Luke nearly fell off the sidewalk.
"Holy--!"
The girl looked at him curiously until she realized what he was staring
at. "-baby powder, Batman?" she finished.
"Huh?"
"You know - just continuing the whole 'super-villains/ super-heroes
thing..yeah. I'll be quiet now."
But Luke couldn't quite wrap his mind around the fact that less than ten
minutes before he'd said goodbye to a baby the same approximate size and,
well..shape. "Where the hell did he come from?" he sputtered, pointing.
"She's a she, actually. And if I have to tell you where she came from,
then I'm thinking that someone doesn't get out enough.." She trailed off,
jokingly. But he thought he caught a flash of hurt across her face.
"She, huh? She's beautiful," he told her. "Um.your sister?"
"No." The blue-eyed girl raised her chin defiantly before continuing.
"My daughter. Lorelai."
Luke nodded, considering this piece of information, and looked down at
the baby girl. Her tiny mouth opened in another yawn and her gorgeous blue
eyes blinked at him. He felt some teeny, tiny place in the middle of his
chest go all warm and fuzzy. "Wow."
The child's mother watched him watch her for a moment. "That translates
from Baby Lorelai Talk into, 'Hello, pleased to meet you,'" she said. "It
was the two blinks, did you see those?"
"Yeah. Well, I'm pleased to meet you, too," he replied. Remembering
the finer points of his manners, he stuck out a hand towards the teen. She
shook it. He noticed her fingers were icy cold. "I'm Luke Danes. My dad
runs the Hardware store on the corner there."
Her eyes followed his pointing arm across the park, and she nodded
thoughtfully, obviously committing this bit of information to memory.
"Cool. Well, I'm Lorelai. Lorelai Gilmore, the second."
"Really? That must make it kind of confusing for your family, with all
those Lorelais running around."
Even as the words were leaving his mouth, her expression turned stony.
Suddenly, she looked like a very alone, very young girl; far too young to
be on her own. A runaway. "I am my family. And so because I don't
usually talk to myself, it's pretty easy to figure out which of us I'm
talking to."
Luke sighed and took off his baseball cap to scratch his head. "Sheeze.
Look, I'm sorry - I didn't mean to-"
"Oh, don't worry about it. It's not important."
"I'm still sorry."
"It's fine. Really. But hey, if you're still sorry, do you think you
could make up for your terrible, terrible faux-pas by telling me where 'The
Independence Inn' is? I found this add in the newspaper." she fumbled
around, trying to locate it on her person. He quickly took the baby out of
Lorelai's arms before she dropped her along with the two bags she carried.
"Ah ha! Here!" The teenager stuck the clipping in his face, and he
squinted at it.
"Yeah, I know where that is. I can show you."
Baby Lorelai started to snore in his arms, and all of a sudden Luke
really didn't want to have to say good-bye to either Lorelai quite so soon.
He quickly came up with an idea. "Tell you what - let's go grab some
dinner first. The food at the Inn is terrible, so believe me - you'll
thank me tomorrow when you don't wake up with food poisoning. Plus, some
coffee would warm you right up."
"Coffee?!" she squealed, "Luke, this could be the beginning of a
beautiful friendship!" The elder Lorelai smiled again at him, this time so
blindingly bright that he felt that same spot in his chest become a little
fuzzier. Fuzzy, he thought with a snort. Stay long enough in this fuzzy
town and before long you're a walking floral arrangement yourself. But, as
he walked towards Mac's Café with Lorelai talking about the miraculous
restorative qualities of caffeine, he found he really didn't mind a bit of
fuzziness. As long as it was only on the inside. Where no-one would ever,
ever see. Never ever.
And back in William's Hardware, Will Danes watched his son from the shop
window and figured he'd better clock Luke out for the night, because the
boy had obviously forgotten about work. The work ethics of the young these
days.
The End
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