Running After Kansas by Oregano

It took two decades and a mysterious letter to get Jess Mariano back into Stars Hollow asphalt, but when he got there, he wasn't at all surprised to see that absolutely nothing, not even time, could change the Godforsaken village of the damned. The same mother-daughter pair who had the insane notion that dressing alike was the hippest fad were still at it, jogging together, matching spandex and all. As he got out of his Mustang and started walking, the very same tree branch that he'd first encountered long ago slapped him in the face.

God, it was like the town had been living in a tear of the time-space continuum for the past twenty-three years. It was creepy.

Crossing the street and entering Luke's Diner became somewhat of an ordeal, as all its forsaken customers, standing outside the establishment, turned to gawk at him. He suddenly felt self-conscious, very much like he was naked. And he'd been feasting on a lot of carbs, lately, so his body's present condition was no winner at the Mr. Hunk competition, to say the least. Glaring at all the folk, he ventured towards the inside, where he would most likely find his uncle. The door was unlocked, which puzzled him as to why the mob was outside and not in. The Diner was empty like a ghost town, and his footsteps echoed around his ears. What the hell was going on? But one step behind the counter initiated a holler from someone behind him. He jumped at the power of Luke's voice, "Step away from the counter, Buddy!"

Jess turned around, expecting to see the middle-aged man with a fetish for flannel and the stupid backwards baseball cap, but felt his head lighten at the image that stood before him.

Lucas Danes was glaring at him, his wrinkled brow spotty with age. The flannel was still there, but the cap wasn't. This treated Jess to a view of an almost bald head, with wisps of white around it. The face of Luke Danes in his mind had been so constant, and the town, even the Goddamn branch that slapped his face, had tricked him into believing that maybe somehow, Stars Hollow, along with its inhabitants, was going to be as timeless as Oz.

Oh, well.

However, Luke's bitterness, it seemed, had, if not increased, stayed perfectly preserved, "What, did you not get the gazette? Get out of my property!"

He frowned at the old man before him and said, "I was never forbidden from entering it."

"Of course, you're forbidden! Jesus, I should put a sign on there that says, 'Get the hell out of my establishment-- and the counter!'" Luke was now livid, for some reason.

"Which, I'm sure, many, if not all, will ignore."

That was it. Luke smooshed his face into his hands in an attempt to stop himself from being thrown into jail for assault. Or murder. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"

Jess smiled with a bitterness that would match his uncle's, "And they say you never forget family."

Luke visibly became alert as the words hit him. God, the hated it when Jess Mariano baited him. It made him want to lunge at him and kick his ass all the way to Tulsa. He did it all the Goddamn time (bait him, not kick his ass all the way to Tulsa) when he had been living here, and Luke hated every second of it. And the fact that he didn't recognise him just made that feeling flare up once again. Stupid wise-ass nephew.

*

"So the Diner is no longer Luke's Diner, but my diner? Jess's Diner?" The easy way "Jess's Diner" just rolled off his tongue made Luke flinch. He wasn't used to it, and if Jess would just cooperate, he wouldn't have to.

"Look, all I need for you to do is sign this stupid thing three times and you can go back to singing Beach Boys songs in the sand for all I care."

Jess grinned at this and leaned back into the couch (which had developed a smell, through the years, which he had pointed out to Luke, which led to him being smacked in the head, which led him to stop commenting about things like that further). "Before I do that, can you just tell me how my name got into this in the first place?"

"No, now sign it."

"Not until you tell me."

"I am not going to explain myself to someone like you, Jess. You're not worth it, as I had come to realise when you told me you weren't graduating all those years back. All bonds that we've had are off, and you, of all people, should know that." Luke glared at the man sitting across from him, and as his words traveled that short distance, he could see Jess's composure crumble bit by bit, "You were the one who held the knife."

And as soon as Luke started to think that he was getting to Jess, the younger man had the gall to try and rebuild his shattered persona by saying this, "I won't sign that until you tell me. And I'm not saying that what you just told me didn't sting a little, but you're not going to piss me of into signing it, either. Now, what were you trying to save by all of this?"

God, it was like talking to a wall! When he was seventeen, a comment like that would have wounded Jess into shutting the hell up and leaving, but somehow, it didn't work this time. It suddenly occurred to Luke how much Jess had to have lived through to be immune to that kind of verbal abuse. With a sigh, he gave up, "You, you dumbass! I was trying to save you. I talked to this guy, when you were still here, showing this glimpse of promise, and stupid me, I fell for it. I told Harry the lawyer, 'Hey, Harry, can you change my will and put Jess's name as the inheritor of my diner, but make it so that he only gets it when he's at least thirty or when I decide to retire or kill myself or die? Thanks, Harry!' I wanted you to have something to fall back on, if and when that stupid Wal-Mart stint crashes around your ears. Are you happy? Now get you stupid name on that thing and leave!"

The apartment seemed to close in on the two of them as the truth finally came out in a blur. Or in a holler. Jess knew how huge this act of Luke's meant to him, but decided to not prod it further. For the time being. "So the Diner's been mine since I was thirty?"

"Don't feel so special yet, Jess. I called you here for a reason. Now I want that paper on fire because you've written your name on it so quickly and excitedly that the friction was too much for it to handle."

But Jess, by some surge of power, decided otherwise. Leaning forward to face Luke, who had long ago taken captive of the La-Z-Boy, he uttered the words that made his uncle's nerves run cold and blood boil, "I'm staying."

"No, you're not--and don't say, 'Yes, I am,' because if this turns out to be one of those useless, stupid back-and-forth arguments, I am telling you now, I am too old to keep up. So please, just sign the papers and be along your stupid, merry way!"

There he was, on the verge of an aneurysm, and Jess Mariano was seriously shaking his head in amused defiance, his arms crossed in front of him. His eyes were practically dancing. "I knew I shouldn't have told you why!"

Jess smirked at the hopelessness in Luke's voice, "So how are those Gilmores? Are they still here or did they finally come to their senses and move? Because from the look of things, you still haven't confessed your burning desire for the older Lorelai," he said casually, with a glance about the apartment. It was still the same swingin' bachelor pad that he had left long ago.

"Oh, don't you try to wiggle your ass into this thing again, LoverBoy. Rory's got too much on her mind right now, and you coming back for another one of your stupid epiphanies won't help any."

The man conceded with a slight bob of his head, "Okay," he said softly.

Luke, realising (just in time) that Jess had conveniently turned the topic from the diner, suddenly added, "And you are not staying here!"

"Why are you so eager to get the Diner back, anyway? Who are you going to give it to? Or are you just going to take your word back and keep the Diner running until the day you die?"

Actually, Lucas Danes had not thought about things to that level as of yet. All he was interested in was getting his property back and ease the worry of Jess turning it into a brothel off his shoulders. Who was he going to give it to? He groaned, as once again, Jess Mariano had managed to wiggle his ass into his life.

His ass, however, was going nowhere near Rory Gilmore's (life, not ass). He would make sure of that.