RR12

Face Boob

A/N: Not my biggest chapter ever, but I didn't want to leave you hanging any longer.

He shifted his messenger bag as he walked the dark street, smelling the freshness of the rain which had recently ceased. He cursed the vagaries of small-town life as he stepped into a muddy puddle or rainwater, the filthy water seeping into his boots, ruining the last clean pair of socks he owned.

The city at least has streets that can be walked on. A guy could drown in some of these potholes. It wasn't the first time his feet were wet in Stars Hollow; as a matter of fact two people seemed to enjoy seeing him soaking wet back in the day.

He squooshed up the stairs and searched in the darkness for some hollow crazy animal, finally locating the key inside a ceramic hedgehog. Knowing the owner of the house, he tried the door before sliding the key into the lock, and sure enough, she had left it unlocked. He smiled grimly as he pictured her hunting for all the ceramic animals which didn't have keys inside that he had tossed over the porch rail when he realized they were empty.

The house wasn't quite as dark as he'd expected, since he'd been told that she worked till midnight most nights at the Dragonfly. Dark pictures flickered on the CRT as he wondered idly when this particular TV junkie was going to upgrade to a flat screen.

"Take your boots off before you come in here," she warned without turning to look who had entered. "I don't want any mud tracked through the house. We have a hard enough time keeping it clean as is."

He obliged silently, the light from the moon helping him find a pair of slippers, which dramatically reduced his cool factor since they were Tony the Tiger slippers of Frosted Flakes fame. At least they warmed and dried his feet. Lorelai would appreciate them.

The sight that greeted his eyes as he took his place on the sofa was one hundred percent Lorelai Gilmore. A horror movie was playing, something dark with shadowy figures roaming a cemetery. She had taken cover by covering her whole body with an afghan from the sofa, only her nose and forehead peeped out. The movie had her complete attention as she occasionally ducked further back into the afghan when the scene got a little scarier.

The crack of a gunshot, a blood-curdling scream and groans from zombie-like creatures must have scared the bejeezus out of Lorelai, because she screamed and suddenly launched herself in Jess' general direction. It was then that he realized that Lorelai thought he was Luke, because she had clearly targeted someone with Luke's height, a head taller than Jess.

Instead of landing gracefully with her arms on her boyfriend's shoulders, enveloping them both in the afghan, which would have certainly trapped him until she had her way with him, she pushed Jess back against the sofa in a full-body slam. Lorelai giggled at the situation as she realized that she had just slammed her breasts full into Luke's face.

She uttered her own blood-curdling scream a heartbeat later when she realized that the person she'd just face-boobed was significantly smaller than Luke. Luke's voice in her head as he insisted a thousand times for her to lock her front door passed momentarily through her brain, but for the thousandth time it didn't stick.

With a handful of muffled curses Jess shoved her off his lap and literally sprang over the back of the sofa, trying to put as much distance and furniture as possible between them. Lorelai, now laughing at the sight of Tony the Tiger slippers on Jess' feet flying backwards over the sofa, dropped backwards onto the sofa.

The muffled curses turned into shocked curse-filled allegations on both sides of planning the whole thing, Jess not announcing himself, and Lorelai not locking her door or even taking the trouble to look at who had come into her house.

Luke entered this NC-17 (for language) environment, exhausted from a too-long day at work, too many hours of Kirk and two minor skirmishes with Taylor. He stopped to kick the mud off his shoes before climbing the porch steps, raising his head as the porch light snapped on, the door opened and Jess followed by a sofa pillow flew out the door. His baseball-trained quick reaction time enabled him to catch the pillow after Jess ducked.

Still verbalizing creative ways to dismember Jess' body and dispose of it in Taylor's trash cans, Lorelai chased Jess out the door, stopping when she saw Luke standing at the bottom of the stairs, holding the pillow she'd just thrown at Jess. All thoughts of murder left her brain as she dropped the second pillow and ran happily down the stairs to greet her boyfriend.

Since the Dragonfly's dry run both Lorelai and Luke had been buried in work for their respective businesses; the Dragonfly had many startup challenges while the diner was inundated with tourists, including the many new visitors trying out the new inn. Most of their time spent together was in the privacy of their home, frequently after dark.

This challenge served to make them even more devoted to each other than previously and their bond was growing quickly. Smiling, she ran down the stairs and wrapped her arms around him, saying, "Hi," and kissing him. "You look tired."

"Don't step onto the grass," Luke cautioned as he stopped her at the bottom step. "The downpour today left this place all muddy." He relaxed as Lorelai poured tender loving care on his tired body and soul. Even though they hardly spent more than a few hours in each other's company during the work week, each moment was treated like the gift that it was.

Since Luke had come home later than usual this night, Lorelai took a few moments to assess his state. "Everything went OK at the diner tonight?" she asked as she tenderly pulled his cap from his head and smoothed his hair. Feeling the tenseness in his body, she made a mental note to give him a shoulder and neck massage before they slept.

"Yeah," he replied, "Kirk was annoying, but I finally threw him out. There was a bowling group that just wouldn't leave."

"You have Kirk, I have Michel," she empathized. "The problem is, if I throw Michel out, I have to pick up his work load. Maybe we can find a way to sic Michel on Kirk and solve both our problems."

Luke smiled in response, laid one arm around her shoulder and they proceeded up the steps, Lorelai pretending with dramatic groans and grunts to almost carry him. Jess stepped back with his typical half-smile, giving them room to pass.

They both followed Luke into the foyer and began to plead their cases as he wearily hung up his jacket and slipped out of his still-dirty shoes. Placing his shoes on the mat, he automatically moved Jess' boots to the mat as well and absently wiped up the excess water using the towel he'd put there for that purpose.

"What's going on?" he asked reluctantly, not thrilled about adjudicating an argument between Jess and Lorelai after the utter absurdity of arguing with Kirk over the reasons hummingbirds couldn't remember the lyrics and therefore were forced to hum.

"She face-boobed me!" exclaimed Jess hotly. "What the hell goes on around here anyway?"

"I wasn't face-boobing anyone! I thought you were Luke!" retorted Lorelai.

"You didn't even look to see who came in the door! I could have been some hooligan!" complained the former hooligan.

Luke and Lorelai exchanged a meaningful look at Jess' last statement, both managing to save their eyerolls for later.

"She's crazy!"

"How is this news to you?" asked Luke, deftly putting his hand up to block Lorelai's arm punch.

"Why didn't you didn't tell me Jess was coming?"

"What the hell is face-boobing?" asked Luke.

"I'll show you later," said Lorelai suggestively.

"Aw, jeez," said Jess, turning red at the memory of the events that Rory would be sure to mock him with as soon as she found out.

Luke looked again at Jess' feet. "Why are you wearing Rory's slippers? Is that part of the face-boobing process, or are you hinting at what you want for breakfast?" Definitely a mockable moment.

"Beer." Luke's command started the all moving toward the kitchen, with Lorelai and Jess giving each other the evil eye behind Luke's back.

"I know what you are doing and stop it, both of you," demanded Luke. "We are going to have a beer and there will be no more discussion of boobs, faces or the very disturbing picture of the two of you doing anything that might even resemble face-boobing."

Jess Mariano had returned to Stars Hollow with a flourish.