Disclaimer: Nothing's mine. It's fanfiction.
Author's Note: This isn't a multi-chapter story. It's more like a collection of stories with Luke/Jess interaction. I plan to have some cute ones, some funny ones, some angsty ones. There will be some directly taken from the series, others will be completely fictional… Enjoy!
Theoretically It was oddly good to know… belongs to this, too.
There's no limitation to the time-frame and it will not always be sorted chronologically, however mostly it'll be around 2nd and 3rd season.
There will be 12 stories all in all (maybe one more or less).
The whole series is called: Thank you for being here…
Story 1: All he wants is a quiet evening
It was 10 pm and Luke was finally able to close up. He was excessively tired for it had been a harsh, very crowded day and of course his nephew hadn't even bothered to show up, while he and Caesar hadn't had a single minute off since 11:00.
Tiredly, almost falling asleep while doing it, he sealed the garbage bags and carried them out of the kitchen.
"Caesar, can you close up behind me? After that you can go home. Thank you very much for your help. Good night!" His sometimes rather chatty aid only nodded, obviously too exhausted to speak.
Oh… That boy!
Hadn't Luke been so sleepy he probably would have stormed up into his apartment demanding Jess to dispose of the garbage.
He left the Diner, and since he didn't want a fight with Taylor, – at least not tonight – he decided to walk across the streets to the next possible container. When he walked, he noticed his pace to be unsteady.
It had been a very long day.
As soon as he disposed of the garbage, he walked back, but then stopped dead in his tracks.
He groaned: "No, please!"
He'd just realized that he would have to count the money they'd earned today unless he wanted to risk a complete chaos in his book-keeping.
His pace automatically became a little slower when he realized that, instead of a comfortable bed, he was awaited by book-keeping, an obnoxious nephew and music loud enough to destroy his eardrums causing irreversible damage to his hearing. He sighed tiredly and kept on walking or, to be more precise, staggering. If Miss Patty would see him like this there would be a rumour of him having been drunk the very next day.
He opened the Diner and stumbled towards the counter in order to count the money… When he heard himself chuckle over the fact his thoughts started to rhyme, he realized just how tired he was.
He opened the cash-register, but just when he wanted to take out the money, he discovered a note on top of it.
Already done. Go to sleep, as will I.
Good night.
Below that awfully short note - Caesar must have been very tired – he'd written all the numbers necessary to simply be able to start working the next day.
Caesar had been doing that occasionally for the past few weeks, mostly when they had a tough day and Jess had refused to help (probably only because he felt sorry for him). He'd have to talk to his employee about it for this wasn't exactly one of his tasks. The man definitely deserved a raise.
Slightly more relaxed he walked up the stairs nearly stumbling once when his feet stopped listening to his commands.
He opened the door to his apartment and entered. Jess sat on his bed reading a book completely ignoring him.
Too tired to say anything about it, he walked towards the fridge and took out a beer. He opened the bottle, took off his shoes, put them aside, walked – once again rather stumbled – towards the sofa and laid down. A deep moan escaped him once again when he finally felt his limbs relax. He hadn't truly realized how much they actually hurt. On days like this, all he wanted was a quiet evening…
He didn't even bother to put on the TV for he'd fall asleep any minute, anyway. He took some sips of the beer and closed his eyes for a moment.
A little later, he managed to grasp the mental capacity to note that if he didn't put down the bottle immediately he would spill it. With a slightly squirmy movement he was able to put his beer away without spilling anything.
He felt his breath deepen and his mind wander. Right before he slipped into sleep he noticed a few things that were strange…
He had noticed yesterday evening that the fridge lacked with cold beer when he had taken the last bottle, but hadn't found the time today to refill it today… Somehow there was no music to be heard… That horrible band… Metallica or whatever is was called… It was quiet today.
Somehow it had been a bit cool in the apartment lately, but tonight the temperature was just right.
…Did he just hear Jess saying "Night, Uncle Luke?"
A moment later he knew no more.
When he woke up he noticed that he was still on that couch. His neck hurt terribly. Putting away the blanket ('Wow, how did I manage to acquire a blanket yesterday? I must have been sleep-walking.') and went to the bathroom. Jess didn't even stir when he walked past him.
Twenty minutes later he was in the Diner opening up. He heard the doorbell ring and Caesar entered.
Good, he'd be able to talk to him now.
"Caesar, good morning! Listen, about yesterday…"
Whatever he had expected the expression of complete horror and annoyance wasn't exactly one of the possible scenarios he'd had in mind.
"Oh, no! I knew I shouldn't have left that boy alone. What did he do, Luke?"
At that Luke could simply look at him dumbfounded.
"I have no idea what you're talking about. What do you mean?"
"Well, yesterday. You said I should close up and I was about to, but the moment you left, your nephew came in saying that he'd wait for you to close up and that I should just go home and sleep." He shook his head obviously angry with himself, "I should have known that he was far too nice, but I was so tired. I am sorry, Luke, for whatever prank he played you."
It took the owner of the Diner a short moment before he could regain his composure when everything simply clicked into place.
"No, nothing like that, Caesar. I just wanted to thank you. It was a hard day and I really appreciated your help."
"That's alright, Luke." Then, he looked at his watch seeing it was time to start, "Listen, I'll be in the kitchen."
"Yeah," Luke could only reply, "You do that."
Jess had been helping him…
Suddenly an idea came to his mind and he followed Caesar.
"Hey, could you please write down your address? I must have lost this information somewhere."
His employee only nodded scribbling his address on a piece of paper and handing it over to Luke. Said man left the kitchen and looked at the handwriting: It definitely wasn't the one that had been on the note yesterday, the note he now took out of the cash-register.
Quietly he walked up the stairs and entered the apartment he currently shared with his nephew. Walking over to one of Jess' books he opened it and looked for notes.
He'd seen Jess scribble into one of those not too many evenings ago. That was something the kid seemed to do frequently.
When he found a comment he compared it to the note from yesterday.
It wasn't the same.
"Hm," escaped him causing his nephew to turn around sleepily, but he didn't open his eyes.
Jess definitely knew how to cover his tracks whether to do mischief or something nice. Luke didn't even bother to ask the boy about it later because when he looked at the note he knew that Jess would deny everything probably by accusing him of sleep-walking and having delusions.
Somehow, the smile his lips formed that morning simply didn't want to disappear entirely for the rest of the day.
I hope, you liked it!
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Next "Chapter": I need the music on to sleep... (It'll be written in third person despite the title...)