A/N: I'm updating this one quickly because I have the muse for it, and there's one HELL of a confrontation in store in a couple of chapters and I'm dying to get to it as quickly as possible. I hope you like this one. I haven't reread it yet, I'll do it when I get home from work... which I'm going to be late for. Darn you CharliLee for rubbing off on me!

My Latest Mistake

Chapter Two

Starting

Rated T

Morning came like a kick in the stomach and Jess tried his hardest not to just heave all over the bed. Fortunately, whatever had been left in his stomach was gone after yesterday's catastrophe, and he was simply spewing up stomach acid, ruining his throat and causing very little mess.

"Jess?" Luke called from across the apartment.

There was no reality, everything seemed to be shifting. Groaning, he attempted to get away from this place, from his own head, but all he managed to do was fall out of the bed, causing his uncle to run to his side and attempt to lift him back up again.

"No," he moaned, pushing him away, but found himself too weak to do even that.

"What's the matter?" Luke asked, concern lacing every syllable.

"I don't want… I don't…. I don't want to-," Jess started again and again, but every time he got out a word or two, he would start coughing and that would cause him to start dry heaving again. Soon he found himself sitting beside the toilet; face pressed into the toilet seat and hair slick against his head while shuffling in the other room suggested Luke was cleaning the bed.

"Drink this," Luke offered as he came back into the room, thrusting a glass into the younger man's face, and Jess tried desperately to do as he was commanded. There was nothing left in his stomach and his body was still going through its withdrawals. They weren't as bad as they had been the first week that he'd gone to the rehab 'clinic'. For the most part, he couldn't remember a single minute of it, but his body remembered that it was very, very painful.

"Thank you," Jess rasped after a few seconds, his throat raw from the coughing and the acid.

"Don't talk, just drink," Luke objected, glaring in concern and Jess nodded, continuing to press his face to the cold plastic of the toilet seat. Not the most glamorous position, but one he'd gotten fairly used to over the years. Hundreds of different toilets, hundreds of different floors, it was what you got when the places in New York that you were most familiar with served alcohol with a little something else in it.

After half an hour of them sitting there uncomfortably, Jess figured that he should probably attempt to get back to the bed. His body was shaking and his limbs were going numb. He'd rather be asleep than have to deal with everything that his body was doing to attempt to make up for the drugs that he was no longer allowing it.

Grabbing a weak hand onto the counter, he tried desperately to pull himself to his feet. Luke was there, watching him, waiting to make sure that he would be okay. When Jess managed to get to his feet, suddenly he couldn't feel an entire leg and he started to fall. Expecting, yet another, clash with a bathtub, he closed his eyes and tried to brace himself. It seemed that in those few seconds, he'd forgotten all about his uncle, who was there and caught him before he could do any damage to himself.

"Come on," Luke grunted, bracing one of Jess's arms around his shoulder and pulling the boy tight against his side. Jess barely moved his legs, but he understood the movement for what it was. Luke was trying to give him some illusion that he wasn't incapable. But Jess knew for a fact that, if his uncle hadn't caught him, he would have been a knocked out mess on the floor rather than a little ball curled up in his bed.

"Are you going to be okay?" Luke asked, and Jess fought his best through the clouds in his mind to nod.

"Yeah," he managed to get out, but even that word shook his entire body unpleasantly.

"Are you sure?" Luke pressed, glaring at him suspiciously.

"I'm fine," Jess snapped, not wanting to have to argue with Luke about precisely how incapable he was.

"I need to run out… do some things, take care of some business," Luke shuffled uncomfortably, like doing these things was the last thing that he actually wanted to do.

"Then go," Jess shrugged, curling more into the blankets and hugging them tighter around his shaking form.

"I'll be back, don't do anything stupid, okay?" Luke grumbled, and Jess managed another nod before the world went black around him.

-gGg-

Luke sighed as he looked at the door of the diner. There were probably nearing fifty people in the diner, and it was just him. Cesar had taken the day off and he was panicking. Every five minutes he would go upstairs to make sure that Jess hadn't done something stupid. Apparently his nephew had thought it was unnecessary and attempted to get him to come every ten minutes. Unfortunately for the boy-wonder, Luke had done what he'd said and had quickly found Jess struggling to go to the washroom and about to fall to a very unpleasant unconsciousness. After that, it had gone back to five minutes and Jess had uneasily agreed.

Tapping his fingers on the counter, he looked around the diner, debating which orders he'd taken and which he hadn't. There was no way he was going to be able to carry on like this through dinner. The lunch rush was bad enough… but trying to deal with squabbling children, squabbling Jess and screaming customers. No, that was too much.

Grumbling under his breath, he rushed around and took a few more orders before dashing into the kitchen and finishing another. Looking at his watch, which he'd programmed to go off with a little alarm every five minutes, he noted that he had less than thirty seconds. Rushing, he dragged all the food back out into the diner and placed it on the respective tables. A few people attempted to ask for other things, like their drinks to be refilled, but he had to ignore them when the alarm went off. Half-running, he dashed up the stairs with a very bad feeling in his throat.

"Jess?" Luke asked when he noticed that his nephew was no longer on the bed. Following the train of moaning, he found the man halfway to a bookcase, nursing his arm, which he'd obviously fallen on.

"Jeez," Luke grunted and lifted the boy back into his arms, not bothering with illusions this time. "What the hell did you do?"

"I don't remember… I was trying to get a book and then I was here," Jess muttered, rubbing his arm carefully.

"Is it broken, fractured?" Luke questioned, looking at the arm and knowing better than touching it.

"No," Jess shook his head and stared out a window grumpily.

"Which book did you want?" Luke sighed, looking over the bookshelf and the books that the kid had left here for over two years.

"I don't know, bring me something Hemmingway," Jess shrugged, and then cringed.

"Here," Luke offered, placing a stack of about ten books on the table beside the bed. He'd seen how his nephew read and he didn't want to be gathering books every ten minutes.

"Thanks… do you think that you could bring me some paper… a pen?" Jess groaned, weakening every second.

"Yeah, sure," Luke agreed, handing him the supplies and then eyeing the door.

"Go," Jess grumbled, picking up the paper and pen and starting to write.

"I'll be back in five minutes," Luke assured him.

"I'm not going anywhere, make it ten," Jess shrugged.

"Are you sure?" Luke eyed him suspiciously.

"Yes," Jess hissed between his teeth and gave his uncle a very nasty glare.

"Going," Luke put up his hands in a 'don't eat me' position. Stumbling down the stairs and back into the diner, he rushed around to a few more tables until he was positive that he'd gotten everyone's orders. Moving quickly, he got to the sign and turned it to 'CLOSED'. He'd take care of these orders and then he'd be done for the day. There was no way he was going to be able to care for Jess and take care of the diner.

Looking at his watch, he dashed into the kitchen and made another few meals, handing them out to tables, and then danced about, debating whether to go see Jess at the five minute mark again. Sighing, he stormed back into the kitchen and started slamming about angrily. Why did the boy have to be so stubborn? Now, here he was, feeling guilty because he wouldn't give the boy his space even though the last times he was late there was hell to pay. Grumbling, he put together another meal and dragged it out into the diner, unapologetically slamming it down in front of the customer, who looked startled.

"Sorry," Luke grunted and moved back into the kitchen, stealing glances at his watch every few seconds.

-gGg-

Jess stared down at the pages in his lap uncomfortably. He'd gone over them a couple of times, they were pretty well written, not exactly publishing material, but well-written nonetheless. Sighing, he shuffled the ten pages or so and leaned back against his pillows. He was tired, nay, exhausted. The world was doing its best to make sure that he wouldn't be able to write any more than he already had down, and all that he had down was what it was like when he first came here… he hadn't even gotten to the heroine of the story yet.

The door to the apartment opened and Jess did his best to ignore his uncle, who was probably coming in to scold him or some stupid thing. Biting his tongue, he wrote down a few more words and frowned at the page.

"So you're doing alright?" asked a voice that was most definitely not Luke's. The pen drooped a little bit in his hand as he looked up to see Lorelai looking at him, concern written plainly on her face.

"I'll be fine," he shrugged, glancing a couple times at her out of the corner of his eye as he continued to write.

"Your hair's gotten longer," she commented needlessly.

"You don't say," Jess shook his head, his normal sarcasm knocked out by a coughing fit.

"I brought you some hair gel," Lorelai offered, placing it down on the bed.

"What?" Jess gasped through the coughing, and looked down at the bed to see what was most definitely hair gel.

"I want you to know that, while you're not my favorite person in the world, I still want you to get better," she told him grudgingly.

"I won't hurt him," Jess told her, staring her right in the eye.

"Last time two times you were here, I wanted to slaughter you," she told him evenly.

"Thank God for divine providence," he quipped back, never dropping eye contact.

"I know that you saw Rory after the wedding, but she never told me what happened," Lorelai continued evenly, ignoring his comments. Jess fell silent, looking away and trying not to remember that night. His eyes closed tightly and his lips pursed to an unnatural white look. His body suddenly thrummed with the need, with addiction.

"No," he shook his head, glaring at her. "No, no, no, no no."

"No what?" Lorelai asked, obviously confused.

"No," he almost shouted at her, remembering that night more and more vividly. "Get out."

"Huh?" Lorelai stammered, looking at him like he'd grown another head.

"I said 'Get out'!" Jess roared, even with his soar throat.

"Woah, what's going on up here?" Luke inquired breathlessly as he burst into the room, looking for some sort of evil boogeyman.

"Get her out of here," Jess begged miserably.

"What did you do?" Luke demanded of her.

"Nothing, I mean, I was just talking…" Lorelai trailed off, realizing what had triggered the outburst.

"About what?" Luke snapped, glaring at her.

"Rory," Jess whimpered from the bed, holding his head and staring at the track marks that marred his wrists and wishing that he could add another one to their midst.

"Lorelai…" Luke growled in warning.

"I'm going," Lorelai cried, obviously upset that she'd done this.

"Rory," Jess said again, unable to make the word sound less beautiful. "Rory… Rory…"

"Jess, Jess you need to calm down," Luke told him, sitting on the bed beside him and grabbing one of his hands, which was currently wringing itself with the other.

"But… Rory," Jess attempted to reason, but he didn't remember what he was reasoning.

"Go to sleep," Luke sighed, pushing Jess back onto the bed gently and trying to get him to sleep.

"Rory," Jess said once more, closing his eyes and trying to shut that door of his life, the one that was begging him to take another hit. Just one more time, his mind begged him. That was it, one more shot, one more hit and he'd be free. It was then that it occurred to him. It wasn't the drugs he was taking, it was her.