Time and a Bottle
Disclaimer: Nope. Got nothing. Not even the DVDs.
Summary: Tequila, Luke and Christopher? AU S5 after "Say Something". A oneshot in, well, nine shots. (Alcohol consumption alert.)
Rating: T
Genre: Humor/Angst
AN: Set after "Say Something" (S5) but before "So...Good Talk" (S5). We know about Lorelai and tequila. We know about Chris and tequila. Let's imagine Luke and tequila!
For those who never heard it, there's this quasi-dorky rhyme. "One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor." Thus, my segment titles.
GG GG GG
One Tequila
Luke Danes glared at the bottle. It was two hundred dollars of wasted money and time.
Screw it.
He slouched in his seat in a corner booth of the high-end hotel that promised privacy from anyone he might know. He regarded the bowl of lime wedges and the shaker of salt, and snorted. That was for wimps. He cracked open the bottle and splashed some vaguely golden liquor into the shot glass. He knocked it back without salt or lime or a second thought.
His eyes crossed. He'd have coughed, but his throat seemed to have been incinerated.
When his vision cleared, a man with a bottle and a glass sat across from him.
Luke snarled. "Get outta here. This is my bar."
Chris Hayden cracked open his even more expensive tequila, with a richer, more amber hue and a fancier bottle. Of course, mused Luke. God forbid he slum with mere overpriced liquid death. Not Chris-the-Wonderful. Nope. Old Chris there would get the stuff that Luke couldn't afford because nobody would even let a guy like him into the store.
Chris downed a shot and groused, "So you own Hartford?"
"Go to hell."
"Been there," said Chris gaily, and grabbed lime and salt. "What're you doing here?"
Growled Luke, "She got pushy and called me her ex when I asked for some damn time!"
"Way to go, Einstein," Chris told him, and stole one of his lime wedges.
Two Tequila
Lime and salt ready, Chris raised his glass in a mocking toast. "To Emily Gilmore."
Luke disdained the lime and salt again, determined not to be a wuss like Chris. "Yeah. To her," he grumbled, and swallowed quickly.
It didn't help.
Chris choked. "Gah! Why do I let her sucker me?"
"Which one?" asked Luke, trying to wipe his eyes without being noticed. Expensive or not, that tequila was melting his corneas.
"Pick," hacked Chris, and examined a lime wedge with a frown. "This thing's older than my car."
Luke didn't comment on the lime, only on the single thought stuck in his head. "I just asked for more time."
Chris laughed. "You're repeating yourself."
Luke reached for his bottle of tequila. Somewhere in its depths, he was sure, he'd understand why. Why what, of course, was another question, and after another shot or two, he hoped he'd remember it.
Three Tequila
"Bah!" shuddered Chris, and Luke concluded he was glad he hadn't bought the thousand-dollar-a-bottle tequila. Obviously, it tasted just as nasty as the stuff currently numbing his tonsils. "Should put this in the punch at the next Gilmore party. See if Emily gets that stick outta her..."
"Whatever," cut in Luke, knocked back the third of his shots, and realized that whole salt-lime routine might have merit. His mouth felt strangely as if he'd sucked on a propane tank. And lit a match. "Damn it! She gets me every time!"
"Yeah," sighed Chris and clinked his empty glass to Luke's. "Wait. Which Gilmore are we discussing?"
"Pick," said Luke. "And pass the salt."
Floor... Er, Four Tequila...
"Whoops," chortled Chris, and leaned his cheek on the flush handle of the men's urinal. "Does Connati, I mean Connunutty, y'know, this state get earthquakes?"
Swallowing a distressingly solid belch, Luke reached up and drew several paper towels from the dispenser. He passed them primly to Christopher. "You don't know where that herbal, urinal, thingy's been."
"Oh, I been to paradise but I never been to me," warbled Chris.
"Geez," groaned Luke, and the need to urinate acted as an impetus to defy gravity. "It's tequila. You gotta song the right sings. Wait. I only had four. Should it be this bad?"
"You eat?"
"Uh..." Luke pondered that, as well as the mystery of how to undo his jeans. He finally retreated to a stall to avoid further embarrassment, as well as to have an excuse to sit down. "Uh, this morning? No. I had a protein drink for lunch!"
"I hic-had a Waldorf salad. At lunch-ish."
"Oh yeah," said Luke, mostly about the unforeseen intricacies of zippers. "We should eat. I still hate you."
"Back at ya," said Chris.
Five Tequila (and some carbs)
"These are not food. These are processed death with extra salt," declared Luke, wielding a pretzel in his fingers. "I need nuts!"
"Aw, poor Luke got no nuts," wheezed Christopher, shoving his bottle across the table. "Here, try mine."
Luke pushed his bottle to Chris in fair exchange. "I got nuts," he said with dignity. "I need... Y'know, I can't find a way to finish that."
"You got too close to Emily," Chris confided. "You ever look real close at Richard? I'm telling you, there's a reason they only had one kid."
Luke choked mid-lime-suck and felt tequila threaten to spurt through his nose. "Geez!"
"Hey, sharing and caring here. It's our new support group. Victims of Emily Gilmore."
"How're you a victim? You got her to get you to get Lorelai." Luke scowled, and decided he preferred the tequila he'd paid for, trading bottles back as Chris mashed himself in the teeth with another lime wedge.
"Tell that to Lore-hic-a-hic, ah hic-ell!" Chris rubbed bloodshot eyes. "Y'know what my problem is?"
"Nope," said Luke as blissful numbness started to take hold of him. "And I don't care. Deadbeat."
"Hey, buddy, watch it. You and me..." Chris's finger waggled from himself to Luke and back again, to Luke's disgust. "We're the same. We got the same problem."
Having at last found nuts in the bowl, namely almonds, Luke mumbled, "Emily?"
"Time," said Chris wisely. "We keep thinking we got time."
Luke scratched the nape of his neck, absorbing words without any of them making any sense whatsoever.
"'Cuz I gotta warn ya, pal," slurred Chris, "time don't come in no bottle, or I'd have saved all my time in a bottle," he tried to sing, and Luke kicked him under the table. It was sturdy hiking shoe versus shin. He took Chris's yelp of pain as a win, and a sign it was time for more drinking.
Six Tequila (and some qualms)
"Way way wait," said Luke, his hand just stopping Chris from tossing back a sixth shot. "I gotta pour mine. And what's with the salt? Z'bad for you. Blood pressure. Strikes. Strokes." He tapped his forehead. "Zzt."
"Live hard, die young."
"Yeah, no," said Luke and squinted to be sure the tequila hit the glass and not the table. He grabbed another handful of pretzels and almonds, chewed quickly, and washed them down. "Dina, Deena, DNA already not my friend here. Time?"
Chris tapped his Rolex. "Ti-hi-ime. See," he leaned forward, suffocating Luke in a cloud of dainty salon smell, "I said, hey! I got it! Lossa, lotsa time. Only a kid, right? Time time time is on my side, and Lore, she never, she... Uh, where was I?"
"Time," Luke informed him sagely. "What about it?"
"I had it, then I don't. Now I don't. See, you think there's time. Time to go ride a motorcycle and go to college and date lots of girls and still come back and it'll all be there where you left it, but see, it isn't! She went and moved it!"
"Who?"
Chris playfully aimed a punch at his arm, and missed completely. "Lorelai! I said, time for that when I figure it all out and get it straight and then there wasn't any time, see? I wanted time and she didn't stay put!"
Luke scowled, and scratched his neck thoughtfully. "So all I gotta do is break her jeep."
Seven Tequila... Door
Swirling his seventh shot in the glass, Luke broke the pretzel-munching silence. "So. This time thingy. She give you time?"
"Sure. For a coupla years. Then I got shances, uh, chances, but time was all gone." Chris looked mournfully at the bowl wherein the last almond no longer resided. He shook it upside down just in case, to Luke's blurred amusement. "All gone!" he sing-songed. "She got time for you."
"Yeah," said Luke proudly. "Me!" And he gulped the tequila without concern for the fact he could now hear Jimmy Buffett singing about Margaritaville despite the amazing lack of any Parrothead activity in the upscale hotel bar.
"Yeah," growled Chris, thumping down his emptied glass. "You!"
He lunged.
There was a clatter, a clunk, and a sudden, sobering pressure in Luke's armpit. He flailed, got hold of his bottle, saying, "I paid! Z'mine!"
"Yeah!" Chris wailed. "Paid! Gimme!"
There was a shock of noise and air and light as they first struck the revolving glass door, then the pavement.
"Hah!" crowed Luke in triumph, and lifted the bottle. "Got it!"
Chris cradled his bottle like an infant. "Yeah! We got it!"
Luke frowned blearily. "Got what?"
Eight Tequila... More
"No no no," chided Luke, hauling Chris along by the ribbed neck of his fancy sweater. "No no no. It's wasting away again, not waiting a day."
Chris swigged from the ornate bottle in his hand, mourning, "I waited and I waited and she'd ask me when I'd come back and I'd say Easher, Easter, or bar day, birthday, but I too-hook my time, and now Rora-rye..."
"Lorelai," Luke corrected snidely, snorting laughter at Chris's intoxication. What a light bulb. No, that was wrong. Lightweight. Yes. Dim light weight bulb.
"Ruh-roh-Rory," Chris managed, "is in Yale and she's gonna gray-date, graduate, and there's no more time!" He began to scrub his eyes again, snuffling. He flopped sidelong into a postal service drop box. "She gave her time to you!" His voice rose to a shout, startling Luke mid-drink. "You got my time!"
The fist swung wide and hit air. Chris staggered sideways. Luke snagged him by his belt to stop him from falling into traffic, and overcompensated by tossing him into the side of a brick building. Well, not really. More like he tried to toss Christopher, and gravity combined with tequila did the rest.
Chris slid to the ground. "You got my time," he whispered. "You got their time. And now there's no time for me." His eyes glistened. "Why'd you ask her for time? You already got her time."
Luke sank down to the pavement alongside his most-despised acquaintance. He disliked Chris more than he disliked Taylor, and that took work. Doing. Talent.
"I fink I thucked up," he said.
"Sho nit," said Christopher.
Nine Tequila
There was exactly one mouthful of tequila left in each bottle.
"Sheers," said Luke.
"Scold!" chirped Chris.
They drained the bottles.
They viewed the empty bottles.
Eyes burning, Luke said, "I jus' wanna more time."
"Me too."
"Why'd you waste it?" enunciated Luke with determined, drunken clarity.
Chris glowered at him. "Why're you?"
"I gotta figger'z out."
Eyebrows knotting, Chris mumbled to him, "Figger out what?"
Luke drew a breath.
He had to figure out why to stay around Lorelai if her family hated him? No, that didn't make sense. So her family didn't like him. She didn't like them.
Wait, he had it! He almost got his fingers to snap. How to... Time to... Right, that was it, he needed time to understand if...
If Lorelai was worth the trouble?
His stomach flopped wet and sick as if it was trying to crawl up his throat.
If he wanted to deal with her talking to her kid's father?
His stomach dropped and did a backflip.
Why did he need time again?
"I mucked up," muttered Chris sadly. "She wait, right? Nobody else gonna... Gonna... Take my time with her! But you did. You took my Lorelai time!"
Cold fear along with too much tequila gripped Luke's innards. You took my Lorelai time overrode the Jimmy Buffett concert in his head.
"No," said Luke, trying to stand, and shoved at Chris. "No! You don't get my Lorelai time! Thazz my Laura-rye time!"
Chris shoved back, without much coordination or strength. "Hey!"
A shadow fell over them.
The flashing light behind it turned Luke's eyeballs inside out. His brain vaporized into little sparkles.
He was pulled to his feet. He didn't feel them.
"Okay, lovebirds," said someone with a shiny thing on his chest. "Let's have ID."
Luke needed four tries to get his wallet out of his pocket.
Another person with a shiny thing on his chest told Chris, "Say the alphabet from G to Q."
Weaving while standing still, Chris attempted, "GG Haitch Eye Jake Elmo And Go Pee?"
"Follow my finger with your eyes, just your eyes," sighed the one in front of Luke, who followed the finger with his eyes, head, shoulders, and finally his entire body.
"How much you have?"
Luke nudged the bottle at his feet. It went clink.
"All by yourself?"
Luke would have nodded, but his head felt like it was going to explode and float away.
"Turn around."
Luke did, leaning gratefully on the building. He looked blearily at Chris, in the same position. "I think Connect-a-cot gezz arthquicks."
...And Time
Luke's eyes were glued shut.
Someone dabbed a cool cloth on them, laid the cloth on his forehead, and tiptoed away.
Each toe-tip step hit his ears like a hammer on a thumb.
He decided to lie very, very still.
He smelled mint tea.
The tiptoes went away again.
He drifted off.
When he woke the second time, he felt like a human being instead of liquefied roadkill. He drank the cold mint tea, took a tepid shower, and sipped some orange juice.
Then he wondered how he'd gotten home. That was always a dangerous question to have to ask.
A light tap at the door managed not to shatter his eardrums. That was a good sign, he decided. "Yeah?" he called,
"Is it safe?" came Lorelai's voice.
Luke sat on the couch in case gravity attacked him. "Yeah."
Lorelai held out a plate in front of her, displaying whole wheat toast. "Caesar sent it."
He waved it away. "So. How. Uh. Yeah."
"For what it's worth," said Lorelai acidly, "I didn't post Christopher's bail. I think Rory did, actually, but it wasn't me. So. You and Chris drink tequila together all night without telling me what you're doing. Sounds darn suspicious, don't you think?"
Cringing inside and out, Luke admitted, "Uh, it wasn't planned."
"Gee, imagine that. An unplanned event about which someone else knows nothing until a third party tells them."
"Okay, I get it!" he snapped, and winced from his own anger.
She passed over aspirin and his juice. He thanked her and waited for the next blast.
Lorelai only stared at him with big, sad blue eyes.
At last, Luke grumbled, "What do I owe you for bail?"
"I'll send you a bill."
"Chris told me something."
"Oh good," sighed Lorelai into her own chest.
Luke rose, very carefully, and moved to her. "That he kept thinking he'd have time. To get back to you. To get around to it. Whatever it was. I'm a little, uh, fuzzy on the details."
Clearly unclear herself, Lorelai said in a mumble, "Okay."
"I don't want to wake up in another ten years and realize I'd lost the time I should've had with you because I was..." He shrugged hopelessly. "Waiting for it to be easy? I don't know what that means, I just... I'm sorry. I didn't mean I was out forever, I thought... I wasn't thinking," Luke admitted. "I was angry and I'm used to doing it all my way and my pride got hurt and I suck at this talking stuff."
"You're doing fine," said Lorelai gently. "But why not just tell me you were angry and hurt and tell me you'd need a week or two weeks? Just saying some sort of time that goes on and on and on..." Her face crinkled, a sure sign of incipient tears.
"Is what Chris did to you," replied Luke. "Yeah. I figured that out." He sucked in air, and manned up. "I apologize, Lorelai. Can I, we, have another chance?"
Her smile briefly glinted. "I could ask for some time..."
Luke moaned.
"But okay. Another chance. We talk more, and you remember," she purred, sliding her arms around him, "that it's not just your time. It's ours."
GG GG GG
AN: I admit freely I do not drink, and never have. I am only a witness to the effects of alcohol, courtesy the addiction-prone members of my family. If you are of legal age, please drink in moderation, and don't drive after drinking. Public service announcement over.
END