Disclaimer: I don't own show or characters

"Luke? Are you still open?" The only things to indicate that it might not be were the main lights being off and the room being empty. "Luke?"

"Huh?" A crash came from the backroom.

"Luke? Are you okay?" The man in the flannel and backwards baseball cap stumbled out.

"What? No I'm not okay. I'm drunk!"

"You're drunk?" Lorelai had to laugh, at least a little bit. She had never seen Luke drunk before which made the situation hilarious. Then again, she had never seen Luke drunk before so seeing him stumble around on a Tuesday night was somewhat unsettling.

Luke sighed heavily and stood completely still behind the counter. Lorelai sat near him, suddenly forgetting that her main reason for coming was for doughnuts. He sighed again, louder this time, without even looking at her. She laughed.

"What happened?" He stumbled around the counter and almost toppled over as he sat on the stool at the end.

"It's so hard." The idea to make a 'that's what she said' joke only briefly crossed her mind. "How? How do you do it? You've done it for seventeen years and she's still alive. You haven't messed up. She hasn't killed herself or anything."

"What did Jess do?" She just prayed it wasn't something too bad seeing as he was supposed to be out with Rory right then.

"Nothing. And hey! You shouldn't be so mean to him. It's not nice. You shouldn't be mean to people." Lorelai tried to still find his slurring words to be hilarious but the actual words pissed him off too much.

"Yeah, because he's such a kind young man who's never mean to anyone and who never hurts anyone and who never messes up so badly that you get so stressed out, you get drunk on a Tuesday night!"

"Hey!" Luke hiccupped, sighed, and put his head in his hands. "It's not his fault."

"Yeah. The whole 'poor little Jess' routine. It's been a while since that excuse's been thrown around." He was a rude brat. That was all there was to it.

Lorelai had been nice to him since he started dating Rory. He had even stopped being such an annoying little jerk lately but with Luke like this, it reminded her of all the terrible things he had done.

"He didn't" hiccup "do anything. I just" hiccup "what if I mess up? What if he ends up doing something really stupid? Because of me?"

As she heard the door open, Lorelai turned around just long enough to see that it was Jess. Then she turned her focus back to Luke. She wasn't going to yell at him in front of Luke. She didn't want to upset him any further because unlike Jess, she was a decent human being.

"Jess!"

"Is he drunk?"

"Yup." She stared intently down at her hands. Don't yell at him yet. Don't yell at him yet. Just deal with Luke first.

"Jess! You're not gonna do anything stupid, right? You…"

"Come on. Let's go to bed." Luke sighed as Jess rushed to his uncle, the uncle he tortured on a regular basis. She scoffed as quietly as she could. What kind of act was he trying to pull? Keep Luke from telling her what he really did? Let him fall down the stairs?

Lorelai wasn't going anywhere until she knew Luke was okay. And until she got a chance to yell at Jess.

"You'd tell me if something was wrong. Right?" Luke looked resigned as he stood up and let Jess guide him to the stairway. "You're not gonna hurt yourself, right? You're not gonna kill yourself?"

She heard mumbling coming from the stairwell and a little more stumbling then finally heard Jess clearly.

"I'm not going to kill myself, Luke."

Lorelai waited, trying to think of exactly what she was going to say. She had to keep her meanness balanced unless – until – he did something really rude.

He came back down and started doing something behind the counter, ignoring Lorelai.

"What the hell was that all about?"

"He'll be fine."

"He didn't really look fine." Jess put the doggie bag he had filled with doughnuts down in front of her.

"Rory asked for these." And off he went wiping down tables.

"You know what, Jess…" He spoke without turning towards her.

"My brother killed himself a couple of years ago. Today's his birthday. Luke freaks out every once in a while. He'll be fine."

Lorelai stared at him. He was still adamantly facing away from her with every table he wiped down. How could she have not known that? Was he lying? Then again, she didn't even know that he existed until he moved to town.

"I didn't know you had a brother."

"I don't."

She clamped her mouth shut. Suddenly, he wasn't the evil little shit she always saw him as. He was just an angry, confused kid who had a rough past she knew nothing about. It made her stomach turn as she realized that there was nothing she could say. She was the mean mother of his girlfriend who made it clear she never liked him. Nothing that came out of her mouth would help the situation at all.

"Sorry. Thanks for the doughnuts."

He nodded his head slightly as he stacked the chairs on the tables.