Disclaimer: The same applies.

A/N: Wow, I finally made it past the 100-review mark! Thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed – you guys rock! And sorry for making you wait so long for the next couple of instalments, I've been busy with classes and assignments, blah blah blah. You know how it gets.

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Cheers

Chapter 14: In Between Contraband Fries and Coming Up Empty

"So it turns out the whole detective thing is tougher than it looks," Tristan confessed a few days later, over his second cup of coffee. Dean and Jess didn't say a word – they merely exchanged knowing looks before going back to what they'd been doing before. It was a lazy Thursday afternoon, and they were gathered in Luke's, as had become their daily ritual. With less than a month left to the wedding, all three of them were beginning to feel the strain. Even Lorelai had stooped to the habit of haranguing Tristan over the phone, demanding to know if he'd procured any information on Rory's intolerable fiancé.

Jess glanced up from the book he'd been reading. "Care to elucidate?"

"I mean," Tristan ran a hand through his dishevelled hair, "you'd think it'd be easy to find information on someone from such a prominent family. But this is turning out to be way more complicated than I'd anticipated."

"What've you got so far?" Dean queried, propping his elbows on the counter as he concentrated on his food.

"The usual run-of-the-mill stuff," Tristan waved a hand dismissively. "A couple of speeding tickets, things like that." He smiled wanly. "I forgot to mention that money hides a multitude of sins."

"So it seems," Jess averred. "Anything else?"

"Not right now," Tristan shrugged. "I'm still running some checks on him though, but I won't be getting the results back for at least a couple more days."

"Damn." Dean shook his head. "Looks like you're set for a few more nights of misery, Gilmore-style."

"Don't even remind me," Tristan groaned, rubbing a hand over his eyes. "I'm still trying to figure out how she got my number in the first place!"

"Let me tell you a little something, man to man," Dean leaned forward seriously. "From experience, I can vouch for this – never underestimate Lorelai Gilmore. The powers of her persuasion are a force to be reckoned with."

As if on cue, Lorelai herself floated into the diner, just in time to catch the last part of Dean's sage advice. "Well said, Yoda. Hey Luke, I'll have a coffee to go! Okay then," she swung around to the young men. "What's going on here, hmm? Council meeting?"

"And hello to you too, Lorelai," Jess broke in smoothly, the trademark smirk spread across his face as he mock-saluted her with his book.

"So…" Lorelai plopped down on a spare seat. "What's shakin', Tristan?"

"Cut to the chase, Lorelai," he grumbled, pushing his cup forward for a refill. There didn't seem to be any point in beating about the bush, as far as he was concerned.

"Okay, fine," the woman grinned. "Got any juicy tidbits for me? You know, something to soothe my pre-mother-in-law jitters? And to give you a good, undisturbed sleep tonight?"

"Remind me to get an unlisted phone number tomorrow," Tristan griped.

"Okay Chippy, less with the small talk, and on with the good stuff!"  Lorelai ordered, rubbing her hands together with anticipation.

"That's the thing," Tristan tiredly informed her. "I checked up on him. Zilch."

"Zilch?" Lorelai blinked, almost uncomprehendingly. "What do you mean, zilch?"

Tristan searched the air above him for the patience he knew he would need in order to get through the rest of the conversation. "Exactly that. Zilch. Nada. Zip. Nothing. Zero–"

"You know what, Word Boy, I got it the first time around," Lorelai snapped, drumming her fingers on the counter. "Just tell me, are you sure you have absolutely nothing on this guy?"

"Some speeding tickets, nothing else," Tristan reluctantly admitted.

"A-ha!" Lorelai snapped her fingers gleefully. "So maybe we could blackmail him with that! Yeah, we could go over to his house, you know, and slap him with all the documents, and scare the living daylights out of him, and–"

"Lorelai," Luke walked up, coffee pot in hand. "You're not talking about pulling another one of your stunts on Taylor, are you? Remember what happened the last time you tried anything on him?"

"Yeah, yeah," Lorelai waved him away. "No big deal, Luke. Moving along now–"

Tristan looked over at Luke curiously. "What happened?" 

"We were at the town meeting," the older man explained. "Taylor was rambling about some town beautification project he wanted to get working on, and someone started throwing cold French fries at him about four rows from the front."

"And Taylor went off about how I was disrupting the proceedings," Lorelai said, making a face. "He made me stay back, and he gave me this lecture about the dangers of mishandling contraband fries at an official Stars Hollow town meeting. It was torture." Shaking her head, she snapped back to the present. "But that's beside the point. We're actually talking about the million and one ways we're going to torture Rory's fiancé once we find some really good dirt on him."

To say the expression on Luke's face was one of great disapproval would be an understatement. "Lorelai…"

"But I don't like him!" she whined in response, her lower lip sticking out in a petulant pout. "He's mean to Rory! And he made fun of Colonel Clucker the first time he came over! He's a mean man!"

"Colonel Clucker?" Tristan whispered uncertainly to Jess and Dean.

"The stuffed bird Rory has in her room," Dean quickly supplied before shifting his attention back to the exchange between Lorelai and Luke.

"And you know what you should do the next time Rory brings him here?" Lorelai was saying, her eyes shining with mischief.

A wary look crept across Luke's countenance. "What? Spike his coffee?"

"I admire your thinking, but actually…" Lorelai grinned evilly. "I was talking about you putting him in a headlock."

That did it – Tristan could no longer hold in the laughter he'd been trying to suppress. "A headlock?"

"No," Luke backed away. "You're crazy, you know that?"

"Oh, come on!" Lorelai jumped up and sprung behind the counter, effectively blocking Luke's path. "You did it to Dean before! Why won't you do it to Robert? What's Dean got that Robert doesn't?"

"I don't even want to answer that," Luke said, his eyes darting frantically around the diner for an escape route.

"Hey, this afternoon is turning out to be more interesting than I thought," Jess murmured, putting down his book.

"A typical day at Luke's," Dean shrugged, helping himself to the coffee pot that stood unguarded on the counter.

"Lorelai's chasing Luke around the diner, and she's trying to convince him to inflict bodily harm on Rory's fiancé," Tristan said, swivelling around in his seat for a better view. "How is this typical?"

"Believe me," Jess's smile was lopsided as he replenished his cup. "This is typical."

"Anyway," Dean deftly changed the subject. "What about the background check you're running on Robert?"

"Oh yeah," Tristan tore his napkin absently. "As I said before, the results will take a few more days. But in the meantime, I'm meeting some people in Boston tomorrow. It might bring up something interesting, who knows?"

Dean looked impatient. "Hey, if your first check turned nothing up on Robert, what makes you so sure you're going to find something the second time around?"

"I'm not sure it's going to bring up anything," Tristan wearily sighed. "But there's no harm in looking again, right?"

"No." Dean followed Lorelai and Luke's progress around the half-empty diner. "I guess not."

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To Be Continued…