Title: "The Great Wall of China"
Author: Mala
E-mail: malisita@yahoo.com
Fandom: "Gilmore Girls"
Rating/Classification: PG, Luke/Lorelai-ish, humor, angst, ficlet.
Disclaimer: Amy Sherman Palladino is my hero.
Summary: A filler scene for "Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days", Luke's POV on the lead-up to Lorelai finally coming into the diner at the end.
He wonders how many times he can rub the same circle into the counter top before tunneling straight through. He could be the first man to get to China by dishrag. Let it never be said that Luke Danes doesn't have goals.
*Damn*.
He sighs, leaning his elbows on the edge of the Formica and dropping the burrowing tool. There is no coffee stain anymore. There, quite possibly, never was one at that precise spot. "But there COULD be," he tells himself, defensively. Score one for preemptive scouring. Not only does he have goals, but he's precognitive and efficient.
And he talks to himself.
Yeah, he's a prize
"Why don't you just call her?" Jess, clearly, hasn't learned how to fill salt and pepper shakers without editorializing...but Luke isn't in a position look a gift nephew in the mouth. Drop-kicking him out the window, however, is often an appealing thought.
"What 'her'?" he growls, impressed by how convincingly clueless it sounds.
"Miss Cleo." Insolent brat. "Is there any other 'her'? Do you need me to spell it out? Maybe hum a few bars in the key of 'L'?"
Apparently he needs to work on his cluelessness.
"No!" he snaps, reverting back to his default of irritation. "I do not need you to spell it out or hum or prove in any way that my tax dollars are going towards a worthwhile high school education." He's tempted to reach for the rag again. China is looking, more and more, like a feasible option. "And I'm NOT calling her."
"Miss Cleo or Lorelai?"
"Finish filling the shakers and go do...whatever it is that you do."
"Suit yourself, Old Man. Die alone in decrepit misery."
Is it perverse to hope that Jess spills iodized salt all over his faded, overpriced sneakers? Especially considering that the loss would be to the diner and not to the kid's dignity?
He is NOT calling Lorelai. He doesn't think he ever HAS called her. They communicate in unannounced visits and trade in caffeine and grumbles. Calling her implies missing her and how can he miss her when she's not even gone? She's a force of nature. In his life even when she doesn't whirl into the diner every morning demanding coffee like a jittery heroin addict. Even when she's avoiding him.
Jess finishes his tasks with an all-time-high minimum of smart-ass comments and manages to stack the bulk containers of salt and pepper back in the stock room without dropping anything. Not even his smirk. Smug little twerp. He grunts something about madness and a girl on his way out the door. Either a girl or an Alan Ladd Western.
Left alone, Luke can finally mutter explicitly uncharitable things like "why couldn't I have been an only child?" and go back to abusing the counter with the dishrag. Wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off.
He's probably halfway to his underground destination when the bell jingles... when he looks up and she's standing there. Tall and pale and upset and wearing something light and summery and vaguely flowy. And her mouth opens and she starts saying things and it takes every bit of strength he has to keep his eyes down, on the cash register, on anything except her face and her lips.
But then he starts listening, he wants to do stupid things like hold her and kiss her and tell her she'll be okay, that she's got him. That she'll always have him.
Let it never be said that Luke Danes doesn't have goals.
Yeah. *Damn*.
--end--
September 26, 2002.