Babysitter3
Disclaimer: Still not mine. Set it to music... Not mine!
AN: Now, for a different look at the case of Luke Danes, Babysitter. Please keep in mind this is AU. As in I'm making it up. As in non-canon. BTW, I can't seem to keep one POV for a multi-chap. This is why I do one-shots, folks.
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Jess Mariano sat on the landing outside the office door still labeled Office, although the place was an apartment over a diner in a building called a hardware store.
Nothing in Stars Hollow was labeled correctly, as far as Jess was concerned.
Take his uncle, which Jess did, since he was a thousand times less unpredictable than his mother. Luke was clumsy with words, but he had given the bed to Jess and taken over the couch. For Jess, that meant quite a lot, given the man had only one room to live in, bathroom excluded. That wasn't an uncle thing. That was supposed to be a parent thing, taking the couch.
He excluded Rory's mom Lorelai from the bitterness of that. She had a good couch, for one thing, and for another, she didn't have to let him stay the night, soundly asleep, in a house that was quiet and smelled of cleaners and perfume and coffee. There was a lot of comfort in such an environment, for Jess. No traffic noises, no screeching voices, no vomiting, no shouting to get his butt out of the way.
When he woke up, frightened and hostile because of the unfamiliar surroundings, he'd heard singing start, a cheerful little song of some kind. Rory's mother had then offered him Tang and a toaster pastry to hold him over until he could shower, and brush his teeth. She had provided him with a goofy Mickey Mouse toothbrush, cinnamon toothpaste, and a plain green t-shirt to wear. The soap had been sort of irritating, being pink, but the smell had faded quickly. When he'd come out of the shower, he'd found his underwear had been freshened with a dash of baby powder. It was a gesture that on one hand irked him. He was no baby. On the other, he couldn't believe she'd done something that nice.
Then, when he was certain breakfast had been the orange drink and toaster pastry, she had sung out that it was time for pancakes. He'd watched in awe as she confidently bossed his uncle's employee into chocolate chip pancakes for him, for Rory, and herself, with eggs on the side, and bacon. It was a week of breakfasts for Jess, and yet it was all his for one meal. He'd been terrified for a moment that he had to share, but Lorelai dug into her stack, and Rory into hers, and Jess dove into his with glee after that. They were chatting, not snarling. They were feeding him, not rushing him. They were letting him stay silent, not criticizing him. Jess hadn't had a breakfast like that in his life.
All in all, Jess's third favorite person in Stars Hollow was definitely Lorelai Gilmore. Rory came in second, because no other girl, or boy for that matter, read Dickens voluntarily. She had an extensive vocabulary, had a long list of books to read that often overlapped his own, and was willing to argue that her girly books had value as much as the adventures he enjoyed. Jess respected that.
His uncle, naturally, ranked first. Yet he wasn't certain what to do about his uncle, because right now some strange woman was in there arguing with his uncle, and it didn't sound good.
"…the hell, Luke? Since when do you sleep on the couch my first night back!"
Jess wished Lorelai and Rory hadn't left. All that summer school stuff Rory did made her a complete and total loser and geek and nerd, but it did give her somewhere to go. Field trips, and picnics, and classes about things like how to make a newspaper, and how to collect and identify plants or rocks. It was something her friend Lane Kim did, too. Eight weeks of extra school was blasphemy to Jess, but at the moment, he'd have traded all this for regular school. Dull, brain-numbing homework included.
"Rachel, not now."
"Yes, now!"
"Jess will be home and…"
Jess hiccupped. Home? This was home? Since when was quiet-clean-boring-safe his home?
"Who was she?"
"I told you, I had too much to drink, so I slept it off! On the bathroom floor!"
"You never have too much to drink!"
"You would if you had to sit through her talking about up-selling," snapped his uncle, and Jess relaxed. No way the Gilmore mom would talk about that stuff. Also, it was good to hear his uncle didn't get drunk on a regular basis. Jess really hated the stink of alcohol after it had passed through a human body, by whatever means. "Look, we had dinner after the seminar, okay? Then she invited me over to talk more shop, or boutique, or whatever the hell it is with her, and it was drink wine or tell her to shut up in her own house! She gave me toast and juice the next morning, that was it!"
Long-time expert on men giving excuses to his mother, Jess recognized honesty when he heard it. Uncle Luke had not enjoyed his time with whatever person talked so much about shops.
"Fine, but what about the other one?"
Jess leaned closer to the door, holding his breath.
He heard nothing.
The woman, Rachel, sounded strange when she spoke. "She likes this town, doesn't she?"
"What's wrong with that?"
"What isn't?"
"Ah geez, Rachel, this again? If you hate it so much, then why come back?"
"I thought I had you to come back to!"
"Why?"
Jess huddled into a ball. He'd heard that sort of thing before. His father had demanded to know why his mother had tracked him across the country, and sent her back to New York, and never bothered again. It wasn't a clear memory, but it was perversely a painfully exact one. Jimmy Mariano didn't want Liz or Jess. He didn't want to be on the same coast with them. This woman and Uncle Luke had the same issue. She didn't want to be in Stars Hollow, and he didn't see why he should budge. Making him, unfortunately, like Jimmy Mariano, as far as Jess could tell.
Rory Gilmore moved up half a notch on the list of Jess Mariano's Favorite People in Stars Hollow.
Rachel's voice was thick, unhappy. "I don't… I… We're… I thought what we have is worth… I thought…"
"You thought," snapped Luke brutally, with a slapping noise of cloth on a table, "that after a few years I'd get tired of running the diner and go off to Pongo Pongo or Timbuktu. And I do what? Cook over a campfire while you take photographs all day and night?"
"Yes!" cried Rachel, causing Jess to flinch in surprise. "Think of all the world you'd see and think of all the places you'd never know existed, and never having to worry about a roof or plumbing or…" Paper fluttered. "Orders."
"You haven't been here a day and we're having the same argument," interrupted Luke, his voice rough and pained, something like Jess's mother's when she'd had yet another disastrous fight with whichever boyfriend or boss.
"Luke, just give it a chance, you'll get over this, well, this town…"
"Stop."
Jess, accustomed to that tone from men who had fists raised, froze mid-breath.
"Rachel," Luke went on, voice cracking as it dropped to a normal volume. "You say you're going to stay this time, but you don't want to stay. You want to stay long enough to talk me into leaving."
The thump bespoke a man dropping onto a couch. Or a woman. Jess exhaled softly, glad there was no violence. He understood that noise all too well, and this was not it. He sagged into a limp sprawl, wishing desperately that the adults would get through their angst so he could change into fresh underwear. Luke had bought him all kinds, and he could have briefs, boxers, plain or patterned. It was, Jess reluctantly admitted, sort of cool. His mother just bought the cheapest and that was it. He'd had to suffer Sesame Street briefs for a year that he hoped to forget someday.
"And you want to talk me into staying," accused Rachel.
The silence scorched.
"Oh," said Rachel, sounding shocked and hurt, to Jess's ears. "You don't."
There was some muffled sobbing, and shushing noises that sounded as if his uncle really wanted to say, "Geez!" instead of "Shh".
Scowling, an expression he had already perfected, Jess decided that this Rachel didn't really want to marry Luke and be his aunt and have babies and a house and all that grown-up yuck. She wanted to have a piece of Stars Hollow to take with her, a piece that she liked, but Uncle Luke didn't want to be that. He wanted someone who'd do those mom-dad-family things he saw on television and in movies, or read about in books.
Jess pondered the situation for a few minutes, while the sniffling and snuffling continued, then decided that he felt bad for this Rachel. Clearly, she was nowhere near as sensible as Rory's mother, who had all sorts of adventures just getting from her house to the diner. Rachel, concluded Jess, was like his own mother, Liz. She always thought the next place, the next job, the next whatever, would be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow she never stopped chasing. Having read many books, however, Jess knew that rainbows couldn't be chased. Their nature was to appear, then dissipate, when the light or the angle changed.
Funny, he mused, that someone who took pictures wouldn't know that.
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"Three…" counted Lane Kim, eyes shining behind her glasses. "Two…"
"Wait, we didn't put on…" started Rory.
"One!" yelled Lane, and Jess whooped as he poured the vinegar into the mop bucket.
Red-orange fluid erupted high, particularly because Jess hadn't been able to hold onto the plastic jug and stay back, so had dropped the jug to save himself. The resulting ker-splooosh, what with food coloring, baking soda, water, and cornstarch, meant Jess was spitting out disgusting slime and laughing hysterically.
Lane squealed excitedly. "We did it! Now we know it'll work! Rory, we're gonna win the volcano contest!"
Giggling, Rory grabbed Lane's hands and the two danced in a circle, while Jess literally rolled on the ground, hooting. Rory's expression of dismay had been awesome when the slime came at her. It was great.
"Okay, we have to write it down, and we need to figure out how to copy Jess dropping the jug, because we can't do that in a contest," said Lane when she at last stood still. She picked up a notebook, the only thing safely in plastic, and frowned. "Maybe we can sneak out one of the rice cookers, they use pressure…"
"What the hell're you doing!"
Instinct sent Jess shooting away at high speed.
"Damn it, Jess!"
Rory panted up alongside him and wheezed, "This way!"
He followed her instructions, swerving down a gap between two shops, along a sidewalk, and up a rickety metal fire escape that took him back to New York City in a heartbeat. A few moments later, they dropped panting and sweaty onto the last landing, with Jess asking, "Where's the rest of it?"
"I dunno," said Rory, grasping her side. "It doesn't. Go. Anywhere. Or into. Anywhere. It just. Is here. Nobody knows. Why. Oh wow."
Stifling panic, Jess demanded, "Then how do we get out?"
"Get out?" asked Rory, head tipped to one side. "Nobody goes up a fire escape that doesn't go anywhere, so nobody looks for anyone up here."
Stars Hollow logic officially fried Jess's brain.
"Hey," gasped Lane, trotting up the last few metal steps. "Wow. He sure got mad."
"But we got permission," sulked Rory, fanning herself inadequately with a hand. "He said we could use the alley behind the diner!"
"Twice," agreed Lane, trying to find a clean patch of shirt on which to de-slime her eyeglasses. "I mean, Mama Kim asked, too, so it wouldn't look bad by the store, and he said it was okay."
Jess looked away, finding himself face to beak with a sparrow perched in a sprawling maple tree that was, apparently, the terminus of the fire escape, inasmuch it had one. He schooled himself into perfect stillness, from eyebrows to toenails. It worked wonders to defuse angry or upset people in his experience.
"Jess, what's wrong with your uncle, is something…"
"Hey, back off," snarled Jess, glaring at Lane, "he can do what he wants."
"Geez, sorry," sighed Lane, "I just meant, y'know, he's not usually this, um, okay, he can be reallllly grumpy but…"
Rory said suddenly, "Maybe he's upset that he's babysitting."
Jess jerked around, face darkening, hands fisting. He did not regard his Stars Hollow sojourn as being babysat. Exile, perhaps, and then a pleasant holiday, but not babysat. "What?"
"Yeah, my mom asked him to babysit me tomorrow night."
Jess's heart rate dropped to normal. "Huh? Why not Babette or someone?"
"Oh, Morey has a gig," said Rory as casually as a jaded jazz artist in Memphis. "And Miss Patty has a date, too. And Mia has an event at the inn, too many strangers around."
"Your mom has a date?" gasped Lane, eyes widening.
"I guess," shrugged Rory, mouth downturned. She studied her footing as they made their way down the Fire Escape To Nowhere. "I dunno if it counts."
"How does it not count? Will she dress up and put on make-up and…"
"Shut it," Jess advised Lane curtly. "I'm gonna clean up and get some lemonade or something. You coming?"
"But a date," mourned Lane, "it's a date or it isn't, right?"
"I guess," pouted Rory, arms crossed as if she was chilled. "It's my dad."
Jess grimaced, all respect for Lorelai gone. One more woman like Liz, not caring if a man was spoken for, or if she was. He sneered, "Your parents go on dates? That's stupid. They're already married."
Lane kicked his shin, giving him an urgent look that he didn't understand at all.
Pink-cheeked, Rory yelled, "They're not married! He didn't want me! He never wants me! He only goes out with Mom!"
Before Jess could react, Rory was sprinting away again, dripping the last of the red volcano-slime behind her.
Lane shoved Jess in the shoulder. "Don't you know anything?"
Confused, Jess watched Lane chase after Rory, and slouched back to the diner. He arrived caked in dried stuff, to find his uncle flinging bags into the dumpster with far more force than needed.
"Hey," he ventured tentatively.
"Hey, Jess. Sorry about that, I forgot I said it was okay. You all right?"
Jess shrugged, and said sadly, "I don't understand girls."
Luke squeezed his shoulder very gently. "Me either."
"I'm not in trouble?"
"Nope."
"I'll help clean up."
"Thanks."
"Uncle Luke?"
"Yeah, Jess?" his uncle replied wearily, wiping sweat away with his sleeve.
Jess spat it out. "Are you babysitting me?"
His uncle harrumphed. "You don't like that word, huh?"
Jess grinned lopsidedly. "Not after two weeks."
For some reason, Luke's ears were red as he said, "Geez, I need Lorelai for this... Uh, I was thinking maybe, since your mom won't be out of the rehab place till after school starts, she might let you stay here for the school year, too, y'know, since you're getting settled in and all."
Jess forgot all about girls, woes, and sticky red stuff dried in his hair. "You like me being around?"
"Yeah," said Luke, sounding as surprised as Jess felt. "You okay with that?"
For answer, Jess could only smile.
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AN: Okay, that's Jess's take on things. I know, I know, there's tons of fics about young Jess with Luke, and pre-show LL, and getting Rachel out of the way, and-or all of the above all at once, so if I'm stepping on anyone's toes, I apologize.
So if you missed it: No, Luke did not do the horizontal hula with Anna. He got drunk, slept it off, and went home. Ta-da!