Title: Johnny Was a Pyro

Author: PKNight

Rating: PG, I think there are a few swear words in here somewhere…but that's it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls. I definitely do not own the song, "Johnny Was a Pyro" That belongs to the talented and wonderful performer Patty Larkin. If you ever, ever have the chance to see her in concert, go, and buy all her CDs. They're incredible. If I could think of a reason to have a songfic for "Me and That Train"…gods, that would be great.

Author's Note: This is two separate fics in one document, since they're very alike. Two songfics dedicated to The Couple With The Most Angst, aka Lorelai and Christopher. Oh, and if anyone knows what Lorelai's birthday is, that would be really nice, 'cause it said that by her sixteenth birthday she still hadn't told anyone, which means that it has to be after about January. And since it takes time for a pregnancy to register, I'm just winging it…. So, if there are any inaccuracies with the time, please, e-mail me politely and let me know.

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February 17, 1984

Tossing and turning, she tried to find a comfortable position on the bed that suddenly had none. She couldn't understand this. She'd slept in this bed just last night, and it had been perfectly comfortable. Someone had to have come in and sabotaged the mattress while she was at school. Her mother was a prime suspect, she thought. Emily wanted Lorelai to be miserable, she was sure of it. None of that "mothers only want what's best for their daughters" stuff; Lorelai knew that Emily would never be happy with her the way she was.

The way she was. She snorted in response to that thought. The way she was. How was she? Rebellious, unconventional, a bad girl. Not what her parents expected to get. Her parents expected a girl who would wear white gowns for their cotillions, behave properly, go to Vassar and marry a nice college man. After a suitable courtship, of course. Then, of course, would come the children. One, maybe two if she had the time between her charity functions and fund raisers.

Lorelai squeezed her eyes together. That certainly wasn't her. Her stomach began to churn, not from the nausea she'd been experiencing and desperately trying to hide, but from nerves. Because she wasn't going to be able to hide it, soon enough. She'd decided to tell her parents tomorrow. Right. She'd resolved to tell her parents "tomorrow" for the last two weeks. Ever since she'd found out for sure from those oh-so-convenient little test sticks. Damn pink. If she was having a girl, she would strike all pink from her life, after that damn stick.

She didn't know how she'd managed to convince Christopher to keep it a secret. She knew him well enough to know that he liked things out in the open. He'd approached her father about dating her, for goodness sakes! But he'd kept his mouth shut about the pregnancy. She was grateful. He'd even kept silent after she turned down his proposal.

Why had she turned down his proposal? she asked herself. She still didn't know quite why she'd said, No to that all-important question. But she had. Why? Christopher had a promising future, she knew that. He was going to go to Yale, become a lawyer like his father and become a partner in the business. Yet she knew he didn't want that. He didn't want his father's life. And if he didn't want it, then she didn't want it for him. What would their lives be like if she changed her mind?

She fell asleep with that thought chasing her around in her head. Her dreams lately had been turbulent and confusing, and tonight was no exception, except it had music playing in the background, a song she didn't know, and was sure she'd never heard.

Johnny was a pyro and he acted like a baby
Wanted all this attention I couldn't give.

Christopher was sitting at his father's desk in the study, holding a lighter to some important-looking papers. "There goes my application to Yale. Oh well. Dad can get me in no matter what." He turned to where Lorelai was suddenly standing in the doorway. She looked uncertain, dressed in jeans and a Go-Gos T-shirt. Christopher opened a drawer at his father's desk and pulled out a bottle of Scotch.

Drink a bottle of hard stuff say "I love you, now save me"
Just a big guy with a fun sense of sin.

He grinned at her. "What?" Lorelai asked.

"I love you," he said. "Now save me. Marry me."

"That'll save you?" she demanded, considering it. In response, he knelt and held out a velvet box with the Hope diamond set in a ring. Without waiting for her answer, he slipped the ring on her hand, not noticing the weight of it.

Sayin' ooh me! What am I doin' with this ring on my hand?

Lorelai shook her head; the sudden vision of her and Christopher in a high-class neighborhood too clear to ignore. She, the pampered wife, always looking beautiful for her husband and his colleagues when they came for drinks and dinner, screaming at the servants in private, just like her mother. Never revealing that there were negative emotions to be found in their household, at least not to those not in it. Fires would have to be lit for warmth when she was displeased. Just like her mother.

Christopher would wear a suit and tie every day, go off to work that left him dead-eyed at night, unhappy with the way his life was. Unhappy because of the parental expectations they'd given in to at such an early age.

And their kid. It would grow up spoiled, pampered, and knowing that it was the reason its parents were stuck as they were. Maybe it wouldn't care. Maybe they could be happy.

Ooh me! If this is the good life, who's choosing it?
Ooh me! Mama's best woman and Daddy's best man.
Ooh me! I'm highly in danger of losin' it.

Lorelai began screaming at the scene, silent screams that failed to wake her up. The nightmare was too horrible. She was dead inside, being the perfect haute-couture wife. Serving cocktails with a smile on her face, chairing DAR meetings. Just like her mother, the woman Lorelai wanted to avoid becoming at all costs. This is what her life would be. If she married Christopher.

Johnny was a pyro and he acted like a baby
Got a phone call from the wild almost every night,
Well he loved me but he really loved looking past me to the ladies
He was much too good-looking for his height.

She and Christopher loved each other, didn't they? She knew they did. But was that enough? Would that head off the dreadful life she was watching? Sure, Christopher loved her now. What about a year from now, after she'd given birth to a baby? What about years from now, when that baby would be a kid going off to school?

We were a couple of kids crawlin' out of the crib
Talking about the positives and the negatives of wine
Livin' our lives just like Hemingway did, but he was lucky
He was a genius…most of the time.

They were just kids. Kids having kids, Lorelai thought in sleep. I'm a kid, but I'm going to have a kid. I have to raise a kid. I need a job, I need…what did she need? Did she need a husband? Did her kid need a father?

Ooh me! What am I doin' with this ring on my hand?

She looked again down at the diamond on her left hand. Her arm stretched under its weight, until her hand hit the floor. The ring was too damn heavy. Too damn many things depending on that ring. She couldn't accept it. She knew that.

She looked again at her life with Christopher, playing on a screen behind her. And shuddered.

Ooh me! If this is the good life, who's choosing it?
Ooh me! Mama's best woman and Daddy's best man.

But in that life, she had her mother's approval. For doing what she was supposed to do, for doing the proper thing, being the proper person. She had her father's affection, his doting on his grandchild, whatever it would be.

I'm highly in danger of losin' it.

She would be in danger. Of losing all that. Losing her mother's approval, her father's affection. Because it wouldn't be real. None of it would be real. They'd pretend it was real, pretend that nothing was wrong, that life was perfect.

He was side-swiped by the clue bus when it came to talk to the two of us
And the whole thing ended ugly I guess.

Christopher's face in the dream as she handed back the ring was the same as when she'd turned down his proposal. Confused, hurt, and a little bit angry. Then she let go of the ring completely, and he, unprepared, collapsed under its weight.

The scene changed abruptly, in the way dreams do. Now she was with her parents, sitting at their fancy dining room table. Rather than place settings, they each had decks of cards in front of them. She drew the first card, keeping her face blank. There was a baby on the card, with large letters reading "Pregnancy" on it. She put it down on the table, face up. Her parents' expressions didn't change. The next card she drew had Christopher on his knees, offering her the diamond. Just a picture of the earlier scene in the dream. Her parents looked a little less blank-faced, a little happier at that. Then the next card she drew had a huge red X on it, and she laid that on top of the proposal card, obscuring the face. Her parents began scowling. Then they took their card piles and threw them over their shoulders.

You can put the cards out on the table but if nobody wants to play,
Well, you haven't got a game, you've got a mess.
And I was looking at the judge leanin' on my lawyer like a crutch,
And the judge said, "What happened and why?"
I said, "Johnny was a pyro and he acted like a baby;
Now there's nothing like the sound of goodbye."

Lorelai shivered, beginning to wake from the last strange scenes of her dream. Christopher's father was the judge, the Gilmore family lawyer acting as her council. She tried to defend herself, her baby and her decision not to marry Christopher, but the courtroom disappeared and she was back, staring at the screen.

Ooh me! What am I doin' with this ring on my hand?
Ooh me! If this is the good life, who's choosing it?
Ooh me! Mama's best woman and Daddy's best man.
I'm highly in danger of losin' it.

Lorelai sat up straight in bed, panting, before saying, "Christopher was a pyro, and he acted like a baby, wanted all this attention I couldn't give." She fell back on the bed, trying to regain her breath. Then she looked down at her for-now flat stomach. "I guess it's true about pregnancy giving you weird dreams," she said, then turned back over and tried to get back to sleep.

Morning was there before she knew it. And she knew that she would actually keep her promise to herself that day.

End.

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Boy, I sure am writing a lotta songfics. Well, semi-songfics, since the actual description of one is the characters speak the lyrics. But that's too hard, so this is the version I do, which is a lot easier. Okay. This song is "Johnny Was a Pyro" by Patty Larkin (who once said in concert, "Never piss off a songwriter."), who is an incredible guitarist and songwriter, reminiscent of Bonnie Raitt. I listen to this song a lot, at least weekly, and it never occurred to me before to write it from Lorelai's point of view. It struck me as a dream sequence, since the lyrics are kinda trippy, in a good way. Click on for the next songfic.