Work Text:
Saturday, February 15, 2003
Lorelai spots Luke across Doose’s; he’s staring at heads of broccoli with a serious, The Thinker frown, like he’s not going to let Taylor swindle him into getting anything less than the perfect edible mini-tree. She’s absolutely going to saunter up to him and mock that in about 2.5 seconds, but just for now, she enjoys watching him. Looking at him like this, she wonders what it’s like to go in blind: to be some random woman and be confronted with the sight of Luke Danes. To Lorelai, sure, he’s the keeper of the coffee, the maker of the burgers, the best non-Rory, non-Sookie friend she’ll ever have. But how would he come off to someone else, in all that laconic-lumberjack-slash-broccoli-perfectionist glory?
She starts to make her way over to the vegetable section, mentally trying to be Nicole. It’s not easy. Straightlaced lawyer lady isn’t exactly Lorelai’s vibe. But sure, she can see from this angle, with no friendship history, how Luke might look pretty damn good--
She slams right into someone. Hard.
“Oh,” says someone. “It’s you.”
Lorelai looks down at her new shopping buddy and his pageboy cap of doom. “Hi, Rune. I didn’t know you were in town.”
Rune glares. “Sorry I didn’t call you about it.”
“I didn’t think you would call me. I just thought, you know, Sookie might have mentioned it.”
“I didn’t know you were asking Sookie about me.”
“Oh, believe me, I’m not. I just--”
“You should know I’m seeing somebody.”
“Are you? Lucky gal.”
“Would you mind backing up a few feet?”
“Sorry.” Lorelai backs up faster than anyone in human history, right into a display of newly-discounted Valentine’s Day candy.
“You shouldn’t just loom over a guy like that--”
“I didn’t think I was looming.”
“You loomed.”
“Is that the correct past tense?” Lorelai asks as she scrambles to pick up candy boxes before Taylor spots her. “Not like … lum, or something? Anyway. Not the point. I wasn’t deliberately looming, and I will make sure to … Fruit Of The Not from now on.”
Rune stares at her.
“You know, Fruit of the Loom.”
“Are you trying to ask about my underwear?”
“No.”
“Because I’m really not comfortable with that. I have a girlfriend.”
“I believe you,” Lorelai says, and totally doesn’t.
“Just because you’re still single doesn’t mean I am. I don’t know what Sookie told you, if you thought I was waiting around for you or whatever--”
“Oh, I’m not single,” Lorelai interrupts. “I’m dating.”
Rune snorts. “Who? A basketball team stacked on top of each other?”
“You’re fun,” Lorelai tells him, praying for death. “I forgot how fun.”
And then, suddenly, there’s an arm around her shoulders.
Please don’t be Kirk, Lorelai prays in the split-second of registering that information. It’s just starting to feel like that kind of day.
“There you are, I’ve been lookin’ all over for you,” Luke says.
Hallelujah!
“Well, uh, here I am!” Lorelai replies.
“It sure is good to see you.” Luke grins at her. Luke. Grins! At her!
“Right back atcha?”
“Hi.” Luke nods at Rune. “Luke Danes.”
“I remember you,” Rune says, eyeing Luke like the guy buried him alive behind a brick wall the last time they hung out.
“I thought you might. You know, if it weren’t for you, we might have never found each other.” Luke points between himself and Lorelai. It’s obvious enough for Lorelai to finally clock the situation.
Luke Danes is pretending to be her boyfriend.
“Oh yeah?” grunts Rune.
“Yeah. You stranded her at my diner that night of the double date with Sookie and Jackson, we got to talking, long story short, now we’re--”
“Engaged!” Lorelai throws in. She might as well contribute.
Luke lifts his eyebrows in that classic ‘I am dealing with a crazy woman’ expression that he saves just for her. (Thank God there's no way for him to know about that one married-with-Luke's-unborn-children dream. That might catapult his eyebrows right off his face.) Then he looks back at Rune. “We sure are.”
“Gross,” mutters Rune audibly.
“Feeling the love yet, cupcake?” Lorelai asks Luke.
Luke grimaces. “It would be hard not to, muffin.”
Rune clears his throat and, obviously attempting politeness, says, “Jackson never told me you were boinking diner guy.”
“And yet that description has Jackson’s telltale eloquence all over it.”
“Good for you two,” Rune says petulantly. “Hey, you aren’t going to Sookie’s cake auction thing at the inn tonight, are you?”
“Well, I was planning on it,” says Lorelai.
“Why?”
“I’m her best friend.”
Rune scowls. “Adults don’t have best friends.”
“Some adults don’t,” Lorelai agrees brightly. “Also, it’s at the inn where I work. And I organized it. So I suppose we’ll … see you there?”
Rune wrinkles his nose. “Great. I’m bringing my girlfriend, so don’t try any funny stuff again.”
Luke looks at Lorelai, clearly tickled. Ugh. The last thing this situation needs is tickled Luke.
“Some might say I never tried any funny stuff the first time,” Lorelai says.
“A man’s underwear is none of your business.” Rune points hatefully at her, then stalks off to ruin somebody else’s grocery-shopping experience.
“Hounding men about their underwear again?” Luke deadpans.
“Oh, you know me,” Lorelai replies, relaxing into a world without Rune in the immediate vicinity. “I try to quit, but there’s nothing like that tightie whities TMI high. Hey, when’s our wedding?”
“Sorry. I don’t know why I did that. I just saw him being rude to you, and then I caught the drift of the conversation, and something about that guy just makes me want to punch him in the face.”
“Could it be his incredibly punchable face?” Lorelai speculates.
Luke chuckles. “That could be it.”
She squeezes his arm. “Thank you. You saved me. Maybe now that he’s living under the fear of getting beaten to death with a spatula by my big burly betrothed, he’ll never talk to me again.”
“That was the goal.”
Lorelai grins. “Have I ever mentioned that I really like you?”
“Once or twice,” says Luke, “in between all the beratings.”
“Beratings?” Lorelai repeats angelically. “Plural? That doesn’t sound like me.”
Luke snorts.
+
That night, the Independence Inn is a vision of pink and red and white and, most importantly, cakes. The proceeds are going to Stars Hollow High’s after-school Culinary Club, which was more than enough reason for Sookie to absolutely trounce everyone else at baking. (She insisted it was “for the children,” but it was pretty obviously to terrify anyone who got it into their head for a single second that there was a baker even half as good as Sookie St. James in this town.)
One side of the room holds all the culinary creations from the lowly non-Sookie Stars Hollow bakers; the other side is all Sookie cakes all the time. In addition to the silent auction, Miss Patty is crooning sentimental oldies, and there are a few couples dancing next to the makeshift stage, which means as a community they’ve finally recovered from this year’s dance marathon and can dare to soft-shoe again. Rory and Lane are manning the snacks-and-punch table, and Lorelai can’t help noticing the spot next to Rory where Dean would have been once and Jess noticeably isn’t now.
But her daughter’s less-than-doting second boyfriend isn’t the worst thing about tonight.
Oh, no.
Not by a long shot.
“Rune is here,” Lorelai reports, dipping away behind the desk to call Luke, “and he’s with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“No way,” Luke says on the other end of the line.
“I’m not kidding. Once people get a load of this chick, they’re going to be like, ‘Catherine Zeta-Jones? Meh.’”
“Is she short?”
“Catherine Zeta-Jones?”
“Rune’s girlfriend.”
“Oh. Well, duh. She’s very beautiful and very short. She’s a regular Polly Pocket.”
“Good for him.”
“No! Not good for him!”
“Oh, no? I’d think you could at least be happy for him after he had to go through the pain of dating someone your height. Getting out there again after something like that isn’t easy.”
“He keeps looking at me like he knows we were lying at Doose’s!”
“If he’s with Catherine Zeta-Jones 2.0, why’s he looking at you at all?”
“Because that’s what you do when you’re deranged! You stare at people who you don’t want to date and judge them for being suspiciously single-looking!” Rune gives her another sneering glance, then kisses his beautiful hobbit girlfriend’s hair. Oh, that cements it. “You have to come over here.”
“What?”
“Come over here and pretend to be my fiance again. That’ll show ‘im.”
“I’m already in bed.”
“What? Why?”
“Because it’s after nine.”
“Um, again I say: why?”
“Nicole and I were supposed to do something tonight, but she got stuck at work, and if I’m not doing anything at night, then I don’t stay up past nine. You know what’s deranged? A late night cake auction.”
“It’s a date night cake auction, thank you. And it’s for charity.”
“Me getting out of bed to come pretend to be your boyfriend--”
“Fiance.”
“--fiance is a level of charity I’m not really comfortable with.”
“Tough. Get here in twenty minutes so I won’t go down in history for committing the world’s first Valentine’s Day Weekend Date Night Cake Auction murder, please!”
“No.”
Lorelai waits.
“It’ll be more like thirty,” he relents.
“Atta boy,” she says, and nonchalantly ducks down under the desk and away from Rune’s evil eye.
+
“I still can’t believe you got Luke to pretend to be your fiance,” Sookie effuses, taking a five minute break from her night of cake-themed glory.
“Sookie, this is Rune. No scheme is too elaborate.”
“You don’t need to tell me. Remember whose bathroom he uses when he swings by town.”
“Oh yeah.” Lorelai grimaces. “Is that as bad as I’m imagining it to be?”
“Worse,” Sookie chirps.
“And I’m shutting up about my Rune problems now.”
“No, please, complain. I like the company. Jackson thinks he’s turned a new leaf since he found Thumbelina over there; it’s been really lonely. But Luke going along with your little plot -- that’s what surprises me.”
“It wasn’t even my idea! He just came up to me in Doose’s and put his arm around me and called me muffin!”
“Muffin?!”
“I called him cupcake first, but still, for Luke, that’s pretty good.”
“For Luke, that’s incredible. And now he’s coming down here to keep the scheme alive?”
“He’s on his way.”
Sookie’s starting to get that sparkle in her eye. That Luke’s so nice, he taught you how to fish just to prepare you for a date with another guy and now he’s going to pretend to be your fiance in front of Rune and you should probably just date Luke sparkle. Lorelai hates that sparkle. It makes nonsensical things start to make way too much sense.
Fortunately, Luke comes striding in right at that moment, interrupting Sookie’s diabolical eye sparkles.
Unfortunately, he looks amazing.
No baseball cap, no flannel, no jeans. He’s wearing a charcoal gray sweater and black slacks befitting of a glamorous occasion like this one, and for an inconvenient moment Lorelai can’t remember how to talk or move or any of that boring-but-necessary alive stuff.
“He really went all out for you,” says Sookie approvingly.
“He really did,” Lorelai can’t help agreeing.
Luke reaches them. “Hey.”
“Hey, Mr. Fancy Pants. You look gorgeous.” Lorelai tugs playfully on his sleeve.
“You doooo,” Sookie chimes in.
“It’s a sweater.”
“I mean it,” Lorelai insists. “You’re really dressing swanky now that you’ve got that sophisticated lawyer lady on your arm. I would have made more of an effort if I knew what I was going to be standing next to. I’m trash. I’m less than trash.”
Luke gives her and her adorable polka dot dress the once-over. “You look fine.”
“And just like that, her confidence was restored,” Lorelai deadpans.
“You know what I mean. Beautiful. If you go for all that hearts and flowers stuff.” He gestures to the red silk flower pinned in her hair.
Lorelai smiles brightly. “Which, fortunately, I do. And tonight you get to pretend you do too.”
“Yay,” says Luke flatly.
Sookie does that great giggle-cackle thing of hers.
“Now, come over here,” Lorelai orders.
Luke sighs. Lorelai grabs his arm and drags him across the room to where Rune is making the rounds at the silent auction. Every time he scribbles down a bid -- which, wow, he must really be trying to impress the (literally) little lady -- he basically stabs right through the clipboard with the pen. Such a pleasant fella.
Just before Rune can get to the bidding sheet, Lorelai pauses in front of Sookie’s most out-of-control cake masterpiece: a 3D heart roughly the size of the Jeep. “Oh, Luke, bidding five hundred dollars on that gigantic heart cake just for little old me? I couldn’t let you!”
“It’s a silent auction,” Rune says, cringing like Lorelai just made him deaf.
“Some people,” scowls Catherine Zeta-Jones 2.0. “Tell ‘er, Runie.”
“Ohh, so it’s a personality match,” Lorelai says.
It’s fortunately enough to inspire the Lilliputian Honeymoon Killers to keep walking. Sure, no cake of Sookie’s deserves to have those two grimacing at it, but at least it’s a break from them grimacing at Lorelai.
“You don’t expect me to actually bid on that thing, do you?” Luke mutters meanwhile, staring in horror at the giant heart-shaped cake.
“Luke,” Lorelai scolds, “it’s for charity.”
Luke gives her a significant, pitying stare. “It sure is.” Lowering his voice, he adds, “And hey, don’t be so googly-eyed.”
“Googly-eyed? Me?” Lorelai asks, flashing him her best smitten gaze.
“You don’t want anybody else here to get the idea that we’re actually dating.” Luke jerks a thumb toward all the townspeople milling around. “Can you imagine how that would go down with this crowd?”
“Please. They wouldn’t believe it for a second anyway.”
“Oh yeah? Why not?”
“Because it’s crazy.” As soon as she hears herself say it, Lorelai wishes somehow that she’d picked a different word. A less ‘Of course I would never want to date you’ word. Not that she wants to date Luke. She's already got a different coffee guy to date. She just doesn’t want Luke to think he’s not a great catch. Which he is. For Nicole. And all the women of the world, honestly.
But there’s no time for regret. Luke doesn’t seem bugged, or not for more than a millisecond, anyway. He just says, “And you think crazy and the fine folks of Stars Hollow somehow don’t go together?”
“Good point,” Lorelai says, and dials back the googly eyes. “But you’re still getting me that cake.”
“You don’t need that cake. No one on earth needs that cake less than you.”
“It’s Sookie’s masterpiece! I’m not letting Rune have it! He keeps giving it the eye from across the room. He’s got designs on it.”
“Then you bid on it!”
“And look to Rune like the sad unloved woman whose boyfriend won’t even bid on a cake for her?”
“Maybe you should bid on it for me,” Luke suggests, looking pleased with himself.
“Please. There’s no place for gender equality at the Valentine’s Day Weekend Date Night Cake Auction.”
“Don’t let Rory hear you talking like that.”
Lorelai casts a look at Rory across the room. Rory and Lane wave, and Lorelai waves back. Then the girls’ expressions suddenly go grim.
Oh no, Lorelai thinks miserably, please don’t be--
“I want that one,” says CZJ 2.0, pointing at the huge cake as she and Rune stalk back over.
“Move over,” Rune orders, elbowing Luke out of the way to the clipboard.
“Hey,” Luke barks. “It’s a silent auction.”
“So?”
“So you’re making a lot of noise telling people to move over, pal.”
Rune stares up at Luke with the confidence of a really annoying chihuahua. A total purse-dog-who-thinks-he’s-a-Doberman energy.
“Get him, Runie!” cries CZJ 2.0.
“People, please!” cries Taylor, hurrying over. “This is a silent auction for seasonal cakes. Is nothing sacred?”
“That makes it sound like the cakes are doing the auctioning,” Kirk says, and then throws a suspicious glance at all the baked goods.
“He’s got a point, Taylor!” Babette rasps from nearby. “It’s confusing!”
“No one thinks the cakes are bidding on themselves,” Taylor says impatiently. “We aren’t a town full of morons--Kirk, what are you doing over there?”
“Just checking,” Kirk says, and gives one of the cakes a stern I’m-watching-you stare.
Meanwhile, the David and Goliath standoff between Rune-id and Go-luke-ith is in full swing. Which is to say: Rune is glowering up at Luke, and Luke is looking at Rune the only possible way a person can.
“Runie!” cries Catherine Zeta Jones 2.0. “You’re going to let him get away with looking down on you like that?”
“Is there any other way for me to look?” Luke says. Lorelai snickers.
Rune looks Luke up and down slowly. Really slowly. Creepy slowly. Like, get a hobby, little man.
At last:
“He’s not worth it,” he declares with a sneer.
“Fine,” pouts CZJ 2.0. “But you’re winning me that cake.”
“Damn right I am, babe,” Rune says, and scribbles his name (or maybe just the mark of Satan) down on the clipboard.
“So you’re winning me that cake, right?” Lorelai says, not to be defeated.
“Damn right I am,” Luke snarls at Rune, and throws in a belated, “babe -- uh, muffin.” To Rune, he explains, “She likes when I call her muffin.”
“Nobody asked, you freaks,” says Rune.
“Man,” Lorelai mutters to no one in particular, “can you feel the love tonight or what?”
+
Fortunately, Rune is as cheap as he is unpleasant, so Luke winds up the proud owner of the gigantic heart cake for only $36.
Or, well, he would have, if he hadn’t clearly felt bad at the look of disappointment on Sookie’s face and then outbid his own bid by $500.
On the plus side, that inspired Rune and CZJ 2.0 to storm out of the auction. Rune pushed one of Sookie’s cakes over on the way out, inspiring Jackson to try to fight him, which means that now Rune and his lady fair get to sleep in the gazebo for the rest of their visit.
But also, now Luke has cake like no human being has ever had cake before.
“What am I supposed to do with this thing?” Luke asks once all the auction items have been collected, staring at the cake. Kirk had to wheel it over on its own little cart before hurrying away to bust a move on the dance floor. Now it’s next to the folding table where they’ve settled down with snacks and, in Lorelai’s case, coffee.
“Look on the bright side,” says Lorelai. “You and Jess are fed for the next year and a half at least.”
Luke wrinkles his nose. “I don’t eat cake.”
“Well, Rory will help Jess eat it, then. Oh, the hot date nights in their future ...”
“Is that a thing?” Luke asks, alarmed. “Kids having hot cake date nights?”
For a second she thinks about telling Luke that thing Rory said about being Ready, the thing that’s haunted Lorelai’s consciousness ever since that fateful night, but only for a second, and then her mother-daughter solidarity instincts kick back in. Sure, she’s been a little wigged by it, but that doesn’t mean she’s subjecting her poor daughter to the agony of talking to the family diner man about her maybe soon-to-exist sex life. It’s just that sometimes Lorelai’s struck by the irrational feeling that she and Luke are somehow co-parenting this relationship. It feels good to have a partner for once.
But still.
“Nah,” she says mercifully, and Luke’s expression relaxes.
“Sounds like they had a nice time last night,” he says.
“Oh yeah?” Rory had told her that, but not much more.
“Not that Jess would ever say as much to me, but I’m getting the hang of reading the details.”
“Do tell, Poirot.”
“Well, I caught Jess batting everybody away from the cherry pie all day so he could bring her a slice. People really like the cherry pie on Valentine’s Day for some reason.”
“Uh, you don’t have to tell me. I would have spared a few pieces if I had known some of it was going toward my own kid.”
“I’m not stupid enough to get in between you and pie.”
“And that right there is called self-preservation. So, Jess gave Rory pie, huh?”
“And some book.”
“Nicholas Sparks?”
“Bret Easton Ellis?”
“That checks out.”
“I was glad to see he made an effort. The Jess version of an effort, anyway. I know he’s no Dean, but--”
“No,” Lorelai says, “that’s really nice, Luke. I bet Rory was thrilled.”
“Sorry he’s not here tonight. He’s been working a lot, but even if he wasn’t, I don’t know if he could’ve stomached it.”
“I can’t blame him there. I’m amazed you’ve made it this far.”
“Me too.”
Laughing, she looks across the lobby. Now that the auction part of the night is over, it’s gone full dance party. Babette has joined Miss Patty onstage for a duet of “Embraceable You” while Morey tickles the ivories. Lorelai watches Rory and Lane sway and make goofy faces at each other. There’s something extra-sweet about seeing your kid still be a kid when she’s standing on the precipice of being all grown up.
“This town is a bunch of goofs,” Luke declares, watching the revelry.
“The goofiest,” Lorelai agrees affectionately.
“You wanna dance?” he adds.
Lorelai smiles. “That’s okay, I won’t make you. You’ve done more than enough for me tonight.”
“Okay, good,” Luke says after a moment. Probably because the relief turned him temporarily mute.
“Afraid I’d stomp all over your shiny, shiny shoes?”
“They’re not that shiny. And this will shock you, but I’m not a big dancer.”
“Will wonders never cease?” She reaches across the table to pat his arm. “Seriously though, Luke. You’re a great friend. The best.”
“Ehh, what else was I doing tonight?”
“Getting your thirteen hours of beauty sleep?”
“Apart from that. When I’ve got bags under my eyes pouring your coffee in the morning, just remember that you put ‘em there.”
“I will.” She puts a hand to her heart. “I can’t wait.”
“You don’t have to wait.” Luke nods at her cup. “There’s coffee right there.”
“I know. The bliss of a Luke’s morning is not just about the coffee! It’s about the food, the ambiance, the friendly mug collection. The you.”
“So you can’t wait to see me?” Luke furrows his brow, confused.
“Exactly!” She slaps his arm lightly.
“You’re seeing me right now.”
“I know.” God, he’s fun to baffle. “Isn’t it great?”
“Yeah,” Luke says, softening. “It’s great.”
Lorelai scrapes the frosting off the cupcake in front of her, leaving it on her heart-patterned paper plate, and then pushes the bare cupcake across the table to him and his plate full of carrot sticks.
“It’s almost a bran muffin,” she says solemnly.
“Thanks.” Luke gives her that little half-smile he gets sometimes. Aside from Rory, it might be the actual best thing in the world.
She beams back. “Happy Valentine’s Day Weekend, fiance.”
"Yeah, yeah," Luke groans, still smiling.