RR 17 Looks Like We Got Ourselves a Runner

"This side, cool. Left side, not so cool." Still very mellow, Dean and Kyle stared at Dean's reflection in the mirror as Dean assessed his current hair style.

Kyle pointed at the mirror. "Which left?" he asked uncertainly. "This left?"

"No, man, the other left," replied the taller man. They looked at each other stupidly, then burst out laughing.

Lorelai, her arm wrapped comfortingly around Lane's shoulders, watched this interchange. Her eyes darted constantly to the front door, through which first Jess had dashed, then Rory, and just a moment ago, Luke.

"Lorelai," whined Lane, "What am I going to do? I'm supposed to see my mother this morning, and I reek of marijuana."

"OK, OK, I'll think of something," consoled Lorelai, still glancing at the door. Luke had not returned, leaving Lorelai to distractedly wonder if her loved ones were racing comically through Stars Hollow chasing each other, like Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding.

She was drawn out of her worries by the crashing of the telephone to the floor.

"Sorry! Sorry! Sorry, Lorelai," said Kyle. "We got a little carried away."

Lorelai sighed.

"You. And you." She pointed at Dean and Kyle. "To the kitchen. Now."

Smiling, they moved in the general direction of the kitchen. Lorelai and Lane followed, picking up the phone and other miscellaneous items the guys left in their trail.

Lorelai sniffed Lane's hair. "Hon, you really need to get cleaned up. Go to Rory's room, find some clothes, then go upstairs and shower. I'll wash your other things, so Mrs. Kim never needs to know."

"Thanks, Lorelai," Lane said gratefully.

As Lorelai put her hand on the handle of the front door, she overheard the boys in the kitchen.

"How do we get the Pop-Tart out of the toaster?" asked Dean.

"A knife!" replied Kyle. "We can stick a knife down there and cut the pieces out!"

"Stop! Stop!" she shouted as she ran to the kitchen.

Lorelai unceremoniously shoved them onto chairs. "If you value your lives, you won't move."

A few steps to the cabinet and she returned with some boxes.

"Here. Mallomars, Lucky Charms and Captain Crunch. That's your food. Don't touch anything else, or I'll sic Luke on you."

"Hey, Luke's alright," said Dean, "He helped me out a couple of times."

"Yeah," agreed Kyle. "He and my friend Luke are gonna form a club."

With a small giggle, she warned the boys once more to not move and finally went looking for Luke.

The light from the living room window highlighted the dejected expression on Luke's face as he sat on the top step, his arms laying loosely on his knees.

She sat next to him and threaded her arm around his elbow.

"He's gonna run again," muttered Luke.

"No, he won't. I've seen him on the basketball court over at the high school. He's let himself go. Jump, sure. Sprint, maybe. But run, uh-uh."

Luke shook his head as he looked at the steps of the porch. "I'm not gonna ask what you were doing at Stars Hollow High's basketball court."

"It was perfectly innocent! Sookie wanted …" she began, but stopped when she realized that he wasn't listening.

"He does that, you know," said Luke sadly. "He'll yell or get snarky about something. It really cuts, ya know? He's so damn good with words."

Lorelai nodded, recalling the time Luke was in her house repairing her broken window while drunk. He rarely drank too much, but that time Jess had hurt him badly and he'd taken refuge in too many beers.

After returning from yelling at Jess, she got Luke situated on the sofa and before he fell into his drunken sleep, he repeated Jess' cruel words.

"You have to fix everyone. You think it makes you a good guy, but really, it just makes you a pain in the ass. You make it so that when people fail you, you get to feel like the martyr and they get to feel like not only did they screw up, but they also disappointed you. You interfere and you make everything worse. No one is asking for your help. No one wants your help. Focus on your own life and leave everyone else alone."

Luke banged his fist against the porch banister. "He was lying, you know. He knows Rory doesn't smoke, or use pot, or any of that stuff. He lies when he's hurting. That way he doesn't have to talk about his real pain."

She bit back the 'like uncle, like nephew' words she wanted to say. Grabbing his fist, Lorelai kissed it, slowly unfurling his fingers, letting the warmth of her palm draw away some of his frustration. "Like he lied to you when he was mad at Liz."

"Yeah," agreed Luke unconvincingly. Part of him still believed that Jess was right. He made things worse. And he knew that, at this moment, Jess didn't want his help. "I don't even know where they are." He sighed. "I want to fix it."

"You can't fix it, honey. They're adults, they have to fix themselves. They're probably at the lake, or at Patty's, or somewhere making up. Doing that kissy face thing. By this point in time you probably don't want to walk in on them. Trust me, that's something you don't want to see."

"Ew."

The sounds of shattering glass and the curses of boyish men came from the general vicinity of the kitchen. Luke and Lorelai turned their heads in shock.

Standing up, Lorelai held out her hand to Luke. "You can use your uncle card tomorrow. Tonight there are a couple of your fangirls in the kitchen eating Lucky Charms that need you."

"Fangirl? What's a fangirl? And why do I have fangirls?" he pondered aloud as she dragged him into the house.

"Still too damn early," grumbled a still-sleepy Luke when he woke up. Even though Caesar covered the first hour of the diner this morning, and it hadn't taken long to get Kyle and Dean back home, Luke had still lost several precious hours of sleep.

Dressing quickly, he lay back down on the bed for a few minutes, pulling Lorelai into his arms and wishing he didn't have to leave their warm bed and her soft hair and scented skin. Before he knew it he'd dozed off again.

"Damn birds," he thought as some songbirds woke him from his happy nap. This time he was able to get out the door and plodded tiredly to the diner, hoping the fresh air would wake him up a little.

As he came near enough to the diner to see what was going on inside, he shook his head, wondering if he were dreaming. Jess was delivering food to customers sitting at the window, deftly reaching over to the next table to snag a syrup bottle for the pancakes he'd just placed down. After checking to make sure they had all they needed, he glanced out the window.

Luke raised his hands in question, wondering why Jess was there. Jess just rolled his eyes and went back to the kitchen for another load.

"Hey, Luke," called Babette, "your boy's doing a fine job this morning. Let ya sleep in with your girl, huh?" she chuckled.

"Morning, Babette, Morey," grunted Luke unwillingly. He quickly moved to the counter to wash up and take over from Jess.

"You're still here," he said to Jess as he left the kitchen with more full plates. He placed the food at the table in the corner and stacked some empty plates from the next table, bringing them back to the window.

"Yep," acknowledged Jess.

"You didn't leave."

"That would be the definition of still being here," snarked his nephew.

Luke and Jess quickly fell into their practiced pattern of taking orders, moving food, filling drinks and cleaning tables, each confident the other would pick up where the first had left off. Luke left the tables of the big tippers for Jess to take orders and check on their satisfaction, giving him a chance to earn the biggest tips.

"How come?" asked Luke as the two of them pulled donuts from the display at the same time.

"Got a job. Gotta get this story written," he answered curtly.

"But you're not writing, you're slinging hash."

"Don't start with me about last night, Uncle Luke," Jess warned, thinking Luke had used the hash term deliberately. "Anyway, I needed to clear my head; get some inspiration."

Luke snorted. "Inspiration here? In the diner? They order the food, you serve the food, they spill stuff, you clean up. Oh yeah, that's the stuff that best-sellers are made of."

"Better than staring at a blank computer screen," Jess said.

They moved away to opposite corners of the diner again as the traffic picked up. Luke processed Jess' words in the background as he cleaned Babette's table and seated the Reverend and his wife.

"Hey, does that make me your muse?" teased Luke as he dropped the Skinner's order off.

"Yeah," agreed Jess, "flannel is the fabric of my dreams."

"So did you and Rory make up?" asked Luke.

"Nope." Jess' mouth practically disappeared as he pressed his lips tightly together. He focused on refilling napkins at the counter.

"Aw, c'mon, Jess, don't be stupid. She's the best thing that ever happened to you."

"I'm not being stupid." His jaw tightened as he looked around the room, desperately trying to find some customer who needed him. The rush had settled down. No one was waiting for a table or even asking for a refill on coffee.

Luke groaned. "God, you're gonna leave, aren't you? You're gonna leave again and break Rory's heart. Jess, don't do it!"

Jess angrily pulled off his apron and threw it on the counter.

"It's done, Luke! It's over! Except you've got it wrong! I didn't leave, she did. And it's not her heart that's broken," he confessed before he dashed out the door.

A/N: a short chapter this time; pretty much all my brain can handle at the moment.