title
: Itemized Instructions on Getting the Glowauthor: Keren Ziv
disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls.
rating: It's just barely PG-13. We've seen it on the show.
spoilers: post-finale, S3
summary: 'They've just made plans for a horse-drawn carriage and a movie night, so this gives her a perfect excuse to knock over a salt shaker as she leaves the diner.' For the Luke/Lorelai ficathon, written for Macha.
I want to give a huge thank you to Megan Reilly for her amazing and speedy beta of this monster fic! She caught my word mix-ups and was always very encouraging in her feedback! That deserves an award.
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Barefoot and dressed in a pair of what looked to be men's boxers -- where had she gotten those? -- and a t-shirt with the words 'the real Honey Daniels' stamped across it, she carries a dry-cleaner's bag which presumably holds her suit for the day in it and in the crook of her arm balances precariously a pair of clean pumps.
"Kuh. Kuh. Kuh," she somehow sorts out how to articulate as she plops down onto a stool, the very picture of fatigue and enervation. She motions with her free hand in a sort of circular motion as if she were able to conjure by violently drawing an object midair. "Kuh-ffff."
Next to her, Kirk gives her a look of great superiority as he sips his hot cocoa. Luke warns Kirk silently with a look to not state the fact that he has been in the diner since it opened. For one, Lorelai is not putting on this show of hers to hear that Kirk got up before five-thirty to make it to the diner at opening. For another, Luke does not want Lorelai to know how much sad, sad time he spends with Kirk in the early hours of the morning.
Kirk turns on his stool, facing away from Lorelai, though Luke notices an ear left handily pointed in their direction.
"For goodness sakes, Lorelai," he says as he hands her the cup, "it's six-thirty."
Lorelai shudders, managing to rack her entire body in convulsions without spilling a drop of her precious drink. She's an acrobat; she's a contortionist; she's taken years of lessons on poise as conducted by Emily Gilmore. However it's accomplished, Lorelai never loses a drop or a crumb of anything that she's holding, no matter how powerful her movements.
"In the morning, Luke," she informs him after her first dramatic gulp. "Six-thirty in the morning. Since when have you ever seen me before seven-thirty in the morning? And it doesn't count if I haven't yet gone to bed." She pauses. Luke knows that this is for affect. "Never! Never willingly."
"Perhaps you should try it more often."
"There wasn't a sun when I woke up. Doesn't that make it still night?"
He's not sure why Lorelai has this aversion to waking early. It seems not to be a genetic thing, as he's seen Rory walking in town before the sun's fully woken on plenty of mornings, and he's quite certain that Mrs. Gilmore would rather die than be caught having a lay-about. Luke doubts that Lorelai developed her fondness for midmorning awakenings from her father, who, he has the impression, is currently more married to his work than to his wife.
Of course, Lorelai could have simply picked up the habit as a young adult, when it was her duty in life to do things as differently and difficultly as possible for what her parents wished of her. As he again takes in Lorelai's bedraggled appearance -- neither of the elder Gilmores would have been seen at a dog fight in their daughter's apparel, though he isn't banking on seeing them at a dog fight in any case -- Luke has to conclude that his hypothesis must have at least some basis in fact.
"I would think that watching the sun rise would be one of those things you liked."
"I can tape the sun set and just play it backwards. Did you know that men come and steal my trash?"
Typical of her, Lorelai makes it seem as if men dressed all in black with ski masks and pistols complete with silencers on their ankles have come and taken her garbage before speeding away in a dark colour SUV instead of sanitation workers in an old truck that needs its oil changed.
"Today is collection day. Where did you think it went?"
"I assumed that perhaps some of Babette's gnomes ate it. I thought that Tuesday were takeout for them."
There are many things that he could be doing right now. He could be washing tables, refilling salt, or putting the two-thirds empty ketchup bottle upside-down on top of the half-full one. However, he is instead listening to Lorelai Gilmore talk when it is too early for her to be coherent. Luke now has in his head a vision of a large garden gnome prowling in the wee hours of the morning across the gardens and into the trash bins of Stars Hollow residents.
He decides not to answer her -- because it really is just encouraging her, and who wants to do that this early in the morning? -- and instead takes her now-empty mug and refills it with fresh coffee. Lorelai does her customary acts: she thanks him, takes the cup, and inhales deeply. This is the second cup, where the first cup has woken her enough to have her appreciate this one.
"I've been thinking," Lorelai beings. She waves off the comment that Luke was about to interject (she knew him far too well to be able to anticipate one without even an intake of breath from him) and continues. "I've been thinking that you probably need to see some good action and science fiction movies."
This is so unlike Lorelai Gilmore that Luke has to curb his desire to rush over and touch her forehead. Kirk turns around so quickly in his stool that he looks liable to fall for a few moments but steadies himself at the last possible second.
"Are you certain that you're awake yet?"
"C'mon, Luke, it'll be fun. You'll come over, and we'll have a marathon. We'll pick the most fun. I'll even have Jackson help me with some. It can't be too bad. He watches the Matrix, I hear."
"Lorelai, I don't watch the Matrix," Luke chides her gently.
"So that takes three off my list. Want to do it? Saturday night? You bring food and I'll bring the movies."
He pretends to think it over for almost half a second, but he agrees easily, because, really, what's the reasoning with saying no to Lorelai when she knows very well that he has nothing planned for Saturday night and would have probably spent it with her anyway?
"Sure, sounds like fun."
But it is apparent that Lorelai isn't satisfied with this, because she stares up at him with raised brows and purses her lips as if contemplating something of deep importance. Luke knows better than to exit this scene, as he'll only be called back in once his presence is again required, so he stays put, arms akimbo, waiting. Even Kirk is watching Lorelai with unveiled interest.
"We should do something."
"Do something? Didn't we just plan to watch a movie at your place?"
But Lorelai is already off and continuing her first sentence, never having heeded his contribution to the conversation.
"We never did have a very good time at the Dragonfly that night," she tells him. "What with Kirk running around naked, Jason being a jerk, my parents officially debuting themselves as separated, and Rory -- well, we never did have a very good time."
"You wanna ... go away?" Luke asks slowly, trying to make certain that he's on the same topic that Lorelai is.
"Not go away, necessarily. I don't want to leave work so soon into the summer season, especially if I land the clients that I'm meeting with today. I like Michel, but you can't trust him to not scare off little kids from a candy story. He's my pannikin boss for the time being. And I can't leave it all on Sookie's shoulders, not right now." She rubs her index finger and thumb together as if in contemplation. "We could just try the Dragonfly again, you know. Without anybody who has ever lived within an hour of us coming down upon us like some sort of plague."
To Luke, this is a great idea. Though he and Lorelai have been dating for three weeks, they had yet to get into a more intimate relationship. Luke couldn't help but lay a good deal of the reasoning for that on Lorelai's own shoulders. Every time things between them got more heated, she seemed to break something. Generally, that something was very expensive, or very liquidly and staining, or, in once case, very much on fire.
To have Lorelai initiate a romantic weekend getaway -- even if they were only getting away as far as the Dragonfly! -- was an encouraging sign. He has been beginning to think of himself as some sort of leper when it came to sex with Lorelai. 'Don't wanna go there; there isn't anything safe.' Maybe she was feeling more up to a romantic liaison with him? Inwardly, he cringed at the idea that his girlfriend had to work herself up to having sex with him.
"Yeah," he answers gruffly. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. When do you want to do this?"
"Next weekend? That way, we have a little time to plan, but it isn't so big a deal as to be weeks and weeks away. Besides, we've already made plans for this weekend."
"Excuse me, Lorelai," Kirk interjects. He has leaned over and placed his head and shoulders in front of Lorelai. She scoots a bit to allow him more room. "I could not help but overhear part of your conversation. The diner is not crowded, and we are sitting very closely together --"
"-- and you're a sad, lonely man," Luke mutters.
"-- but it occurred to me that perhaps you and Luke would enjoy a ride in a horse-drawn carriage."
"No, Kirk," Luke states. "Absolutely not. We are not going to be drug around by you, panting and heaving, while we are trying to ignore the town."
"I said, Luke, a horse-drawn carriage." From beside his seat, Kirk draws a bundle of large flyers. On them is mimeographed what appears to be an advertisement. "With a horse pulling you around select areas on the property of the Dragonfly Inn. It's part of my new job there."
Luke turns to Lorelai, casting a searching eye upon her. She smiles and shrugs as she toys with the remains of her coffee.
"Did you give him that job?"
"Well, I may have. However, it hasn't begun yet."
Kirk sees this as an opportunity to continue on the discussion on his newest entrepreneurial set-up. He hands a flyer each to Luke and Lorelai, then carefully places the remaining flyers -- more than the town's population, Luke estimates -- by the side of his chair.
"As you can see, I've estimated a start date approximately three weeks from now, under the assumption that you and the rest of the staff will want to give me several different test rides each in varying conditions." Kirk plucks a date book from his lap and opens it up to a multicolored monthly calendar. "I consulted the National Weather Bureau and Mother's almanac -- she buys one every year, see, for the accuracy that she's found them to have -- and there is going to be a storm two Monday nights from now, lasting until midmorning Tuesday. These will be the perfect conditions for a pluvious test run."
"What in the world are you talking about, Kirk?" Luke manages to keep his voice down. "Test runs?"
"I agreed to hire Kirk," Lorelai explains, "only if the staff were to be given test rides to see how well he performed his duties. It's not much of an inconvenience to Kirk. I mean, he's already got the carriage, and the horses are ours ...." She trails off, a thoughtful look upon her face. Luke doesn't like where he's certain that this is going. "You know what, Kirk? We'll do it! Friday night. You can take Luke and me for a carriage-ride on Friday night."
"Lorelai!"
"C'mon, live a little. It'll be fun."
Luke seriously doubts the veracity of this statement. In his experience -- and it has been considerable -- any business concerning Kirk has its ups and downs, with far more downs than ups. He's frustrated when he can't articulate that quite how he wants to say it to Lorelai.
"I don't want to be pulled around in a carriage."
"We're helping a hardworking laborer out. In today's economy, what else can we do?"
He distrusts how easily he gives in to her, but he nods, and she smiles victoriously before gathering up her stuff and slipping off of the chair.
"Good-bye, Lorelai," Kirk says solemnly. "And thank you."
Lorelai smiles up at Luke, the grin on her face telling him that she knows how she played him a few seconds earlier. She leans across the counter to kiss him, and that of course is the difference from every other day before three weeks ago.
She backs out, eyes on him, a grin on her lip. They've just made plans for a horse-drawn carriage and a movie night, so this gives her a perfect excuse to knock over a salt shaker as she leaves the diner. Luke watches her closely, trying to keep his eyes on her. It's really very dangerous for her to back out, so why is she temping fate?
Kirk says from his seat, "Hey, she didn't break anything this time."
His words are followed by the heavy thud and crack of a coffee cup and an indignant squeal of pain.
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tbc...