Luke/Lorelai Ficathon Submission
I Don't Know Why Sometimes I Get Frightened
by Shaye
snortgirl@earthlink.net

DISCLAIMER: The snark comes naturally. ASP knows all about this.

SUMMARY: On fires and age fifteen, boobs and busts, and overuse of New Wave and the word "disaster."

RATING: PG-13

ARCHIVE: Links only, please. Will eventually be at http://skywithoutstars.net/candles/fanfic/frightened.html

NOTES: Written for lj user=danamulder, for the Luke/Lorelai ficathon. She requested the first date, comedy, and everything going wrong. And really, those all go together like rama-lama ding-dong. Anna said "Aww," so I figured it was safe to post. This is plotless and interminable and kinda corny, but I think it's fun, too.



+++

Sometimes we shout
but that's no problem

+++

"This is gonna be a disaster."

"No! Why do you say that?"

"It just is. It's ridiculous! Me and Luke, on a DATE. It has the potential for really bad disaster movie-level disaster. Deep Impact-level disaster. The Towering Inferno-level disaster." Lorelai made a sweeping gesture and knocked her open bottle of foundation over onto her dress. She stared dumbly at the spreading stain.

"Oh no!" Sookie grabbed for the first rag she could find, which happened to be a doily made of an old Katrina and the Waves concert t-shirt. On top of the doily was, naturally, a burning candle.

The candle tipped onto the slightly-dried remains of the flowers Luke gave her at the inn's test-run.

"Oh no!" Sookie batted at the resulting flames with the Katrina and the Waves doily, succeeding in setting it on fire before Lorelai shook herself and grabbed the flaming doily and flowers. Sensibly, she ran to the bathroom to save her house from burning to the ground.

Emergency averted, firemen still sleeping at the tops of their firepoles and not sliding down them to come save her house, Lorelai glanced in the mirror. Now not only was her dress stained, she had slightly-singed eyebrows and a charred Katrina and the Waves shirt. "I've had this shirt since I was eleven," she said, to no one but herself.

She'd been toying with the idea of succumbing to her inner fifteen-year-old and keeping the dried flowers for posterity. So much for that. She dumped the dripping, blackened bouquet in the trash.

Sookie peeked in, waving smoke out of her face. "Sorry I burned your flowers." A second later, the smoke alarm went off.

Lorelai sighed. "I rest my case."

+++

Sookie ran back home to spend her first night off in two weeks with Jackson and Davy. Lorelai threw her makeup-stained dress in the dry-clean pile and flung open the closet doors to find something else to wear.

It was stupid, anyway. Her first "official" date with Luke -- like they hadn't been making out in her office at the inn every night since it opened. But Sookie had pointed out that a night off meant a real date, with food and possibly a social activity before the making out. And that meant primping.

Not that Lorelai didn't like primping. She was a world-class primper. She was a shoo-in for the gold in the Primping 5K at the 2006 Summer Olympics. But for God's sake, she was too old to have to worry about this. That was the advantage in turning 30. You weren't supposed to get butterflies before your first date anymore, especially if your date's tongue has already been down your throat an extraordinary number of times and in an extraordinary number of ways.

She glanced at the clock as it began to moo the hour. What with one thing and another -- one thing being getting the smoke alarm turned off and the other breaking out the eyebrow pencil -- it was already seven o'clock. Damn.

Lorelai reached into the closet and pulled out the first top and skirt that had the remotest chance of not clashing horribly, pulled on some strappy sandals, and praised the Lord that she'd been carrying a black purse as she ran out the door.

The front door slammed behind her and she remembered: her keys were on the kitchen counter. And, for once in the history of the world, she'd locked the door on the way out.

Lorelai brushed a strand of hair out of her face and decided to deal with it later. She could walk to the diner. Well, run.

Maybe, said a devilish voice in her head, she could use it as an excuse to stay over at Luke's.

She'd always thought the devilish voice sounded an awful lot like Mae West.

+++

"Um." Luke blinked owlishly at her.

"Hi," she said. "What happened to you?"

"Huh? Oh, I uh...grease accident. No big deal."

Lane's voice called from the kitchen, "He almost got disfigured!"

"Like the Elephant Man?" Lorelai called back.

"Yes, exactly!"

"I wasn't in any danger of getting disfigured. It's just a bandage. A very small bandage in a very conspicuous...place..." He trailed off and started blinking again.

Lorelai reached up to touch the bandage on Luke's cheek, but thought better of it. Her hand fluttered back to her side. "Luke? Besides the Elephant Man thing...what's wrong?"

"I think I've been blinded by your..." He made a vague hand motion in the general vicinity of her chest.

Lorelai looked down.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Hi, I have breasts! Wow, this is fantastic!" It had been a really long time since she'd worn this top. She'd never actually worn it with a padded bra before. The effect was impressive, if she did say so herself.

"Yeah."

"You can say 'breasts,' Luke. You've touched them before."

Luke coughed and glanced around at the three people eating in the diner. "Would you keep it down!"

"Yes. Please." Lane appeared from behind Luke, tying on a fresh apron for the night. "Now you kids run along and have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." She began cashing out the till. "Actually, since that excludes just about everything but Bible reading and playing drums, please. Do lots of stuff I wouldn't do. Just don't talk about it where I can hear you."

Luke blanched. Lorelai grabbed his hand and began hauling him out of the diner using brute force and the hypnotic power of her breasts. "Oh, you can count on it, Lane!"

The door shut behind them with a merry little jingle. She ignored the fact that it did that for everyone.

+++

It was a beautiful night in Stars Hollow, not that it wasn't redundant to say so. The day's stifling humidity had blown away on a warm breeze. The stars were out. It was a perfect date-night, which probably explained the sense of impending doom that settled over them as they got farther down the street.

"So..." Luke shoved his hands in his pockets. "You know, I've got a jacket back at my place. I could run up and grab it if you want."

"Luke, it was 90 degrees today."

"Well, yeah. I just thought you might be feeling a little...exposed."

Lorelai stopped. "What, you don't like it? Look at these!"

He ducked his head. "Maybe I just don't want everyone else looking at those!"

Lorelai huffed and tore down the street as fast as her legs would carry her.

"Where are you going?"

"For food! I'm hungry!" She avoided stating the obvious. She hoped 'away from you and your sudden caveman reversion' was pretty clear already.

"When are you not hungry?" he shouted after her.

She wheeled and stormed back. "Oh, are you going to criticize my eating habits now? Hey, I don't know why not, you do it all the time!"

"Look my truck's this way if we're going to go somewhere other than Al's Pancake World."

"No Al's," Lorelai said. "It's Vietnamese night, and I've eaten my fill of phó for one lifetime." She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a Look that was meant to speak to the other conversation they'd been having.

Luke rubbed the side of his face, and winced when he hit the bandage.

Lorelai immediately came closer, reaching up to touch the bandage again. She didn't make it this time, either, but her hand came to rest on his shoulder. "Is it bad?"

"No! It's fine, I just --" He tried to pull back, but she held on.

"Would you just let me look at it?" she snapped.

He stilled. She leaned close to gently peel back the bandage and peer at the grease burn. Luke's right eye, huge and dilated that close up, tracked her movements.

"Did you put some ointment on it?" She lightly touched the raised area, and he hissed, knocking her hand away.

"Yes. Stop messing with it."

She pressed the bandage back into place.

Luke inhaled deeply, and a funny look crossed his face. "Do you smell something burning?"

Lorelai sniffed, finally turning her head into the fall of her hair. "Don't worry, it's just me."

He frowned. "Do I dare ask?"

"Let's just say that you'd think by now I'd have learned that Sookie plus open flame equals smoke alarm."

Luke's adams apple bobbed as he swallowed. He pulled her closer, hands on her waist. "Listen. You look...great. I mean, really...great. It's just."

Lorelai sighed. "This is weird, isn't it? You and me, on a date."

"Things only go right so they can go horribly wrong later."

There was nothing she could say in the face of such cynicism. Particularly because, at least when it came to her love life, it was pretty much true.

So she kissed him instead.

Their lips had barely brushed when the door of the soda shop jangled open, and Taylor shouted down the street. "I can have you two arrested on charges of public lewdness, you know!"

Luke's teeth clenched and he turned to tell him off. She grabbed his arm and shouted down the block. "It's not like we're having sex on the sidewalk, Taylor!"

Taylor harumphed and disappeared back inside the shop. Luke unclenched and, after a moment's hesitation, slipped his hand into hers.

"Promise me something?" he said as they strolled toward the truck.

"What's that?"

"I'll never end up in jail because of you?"

Lorelai laughed. "I wouldn't count on it." She winked. There was Mae West again.

"I meant --"

"I know what you meant, Luke."

They walked in silence for a minute. Finally Lorelai said, "So, how does Italian sound?"

"Fine," Luke answered. "But if you make a Lady and the Tramp comment, I'm leaving."

+++

"I think," Lorelai panted as Luke's hand snaked under the hem of her spaghetti-stained top, "maybe we should just skip the dating and go straight to the kissing next time."

"Agreed," he grunted, shifting his weight so the hard metal of his pickup bed wasn't digging into his knees. He had a blanket but it didn't offer much padding.

"At least my hair smells like, uh, spaghetti sauce instead of smoke now," she said brokenly, gathering fistfuls of his thin cotton t-shirt.

"No, it still smells like smoke too." He inhaled deeply with his head buried against her neck. Her hair was finally starting to dry after being hastily rinsed in an Italian restaurant bathroom.

"So," she slid against him and her skirt caught on his belt buckle. It took her a moment to get untangled. "So I smell like barbecue, now?"

"Are you ever going to stop talking?" he complained. His mouth traced her collarbone, and Lorelai whimpered and leaned back against the side of the truck.

"Mayb-- Ooh! Cold!" She jerk forward, catching Luke's chin with her shoulder.

"Ow!" He pulled back, wiping at his lips.

"Are you okay?"

"You almost knocked my teeth out!"

"I'm sorry! It's, it was cold!" She ran her hand along the cool metal.

"Baby." He pretended to glare.

"Pet names already, Pumpkin?" She fluttered her lashes at him.

He growled and pinned her against the blanket. "Better now?"

"Uh. Definitely."

He moved to kiss her again, and she arched up to meet him, but she rolled aside at the last second. "Wait. No."

"What is it now?"

"The ridges on the floor. They were digging into my shoulder blades."

Luke let out a strangled sigh and ran a hand through his hair. He jumped out of the pickup and Lorelai clambered out behind him. He stalked along the edge of the pond where he'd parked. "Do you want to do this, or what?"

"Yes! Yes, absolutely." She tripped over a rock and almost tumbled to the ground. "Just maybe not in the back of your truck," she admitted.

"Because you always have an excuse! You're too tired, you're too busy, you're too uncomfortable in the bed of my truck!"

She grabbed his wrist. "Hey. I am just as eager to do this as you are. But you've got to understand, I have just opened my own business! Yeah, I'm tired, and busy, and yeah, I was uncomfortable in the bed of your truck. I'm not a teenager anymore, Luke! But it won't always be like this."

"If you think you won't always be tired and busy, you're a worse businesswoman than I thought."

She stared. "That is not fair. This is different! I've been too tired or too busy for first time sex. I don't want to just have it off and go back to, to doing the books or scheduling the cleaning staff or, God forbid, rolling over and taking a nap! Is that what you want?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "No. No, I don't want that."

She let go of his wrist and sat down on a nearby rock. He sat next to her, barely touching. "I'm not too tired or too busy tonight," she said, finally.

"So."

"This is where we say, your place or mine?"

Luke glanced at his watch in horror. "Yours. Definitely."

"What? Why?" She felt a bit of panic at the thought of her keys, safely locked inside her house.

"It's only nine," he explained. "The diner won't close for an hour."

"So?"

"And Lane will see us going upstairs."

"So? Lane knows about us. Everyone knows about us, thanks to Kirk."

"I couldn't...do anything upstairs. Knowing she was downstairs. Tomorrow she'll...give me this look. It's the exact same look Mrs. Kim gives people when...well, when they do basically anything."

Lorelai laughed softly. "Well, uh, we can't go to my place."

"Why not?"

"I sort of..." she trailed off.

"You sort of...?"

"Locked myself out of the house."

Luke dropped his head into his hands and swore. Violently.

"We could wait an hour," she suggested when he was done.

"We're not trying to go swimming, Lorelai."

"Well, we have the blanket."

"Yes...we do. And?"

"Well, there's...lots of trees here."

"Oh, because that doesn't have 'disaster' written all over it."

"Do you have any better ideas?"

Suddenly he sat bolt upright. "Yes. I do. Come on." He jumped up and made a beeline back to the truck, but headed for the cab this time.

"Whoa, wait a minute. Are we gonna get a motel? Because that's kinda trashy," she said, following after him.

"No."

"Then what are we gonna do?" she asked as she slid into the passenger seat. She wouldn't slide all the way across. She wouldn't.

"We're going to break into your house," he said, starting the ignition.

+++

It was hard -- no pun intended -- to keep her hands off of him while he drove home, that intent look on his face. There was this angelic voice in her head the whole time that insisted she'd be killed in a car accident, no matter what Mae West might say.

Until recently, the angelic voice had sounded exactly like Rory. Now it sounded, scarily, like Emily Gilmore.

They were almost back to Lorelai's, having successfully escaped death-by-groping-related-car accident, when she pointed at a big stand of bushes. "Pull over there."

"What? We're almost there," he said, doing what she asked anyway.

"Park here. Otherwise Babette will see your truck, and she'll know you spent the night. And then everyone will know. Including Miss Patty, who will probably pinch your ass."

With that threat leaving sufficient incentive to park down the block, he put the emergency brake on and muttered, "It had better not be vandalized in the morning."

"Because I live in a neighborhood with such a notorious crime rate."

They crept along the road to Lorelai's yard. She'd convinced him on the way over that since she'd left her bedroom window open, there was no need to break the doorknob. Or a window. They just had to climb a tree, that's all.

He looked at Lorelai's outfit dubiously. "I don't know how you think you're going to climb a tree wearing that."

She flashed him her most charming smile. "I'm not."

He shook his head. "I knew you were trouble."

Fortunately, she'd left the step ladder outside the last time she needed to use it, which he scolded her for even as he checked the locking hinges and began to mount it. It wasn't too difficult from there to climb onto the big branch that extended over her porch roof.

At least, it didn't look too difficult from where she was standing, safely on the ground.

He probably ruined his nice pants, though. Shame, really.

After some maneuvering, he managed to make it to the roof without killing himself. Lorelai ran around the side of the house to where her bedroom was, watching as he carefully made his way along the steep gable.

"Lorelai," he said seriously.

"What?"

"There's a screen on this window."

"So? Pull it off."

"I need something to pry it off with, and it's funny, but I left my toolbelt with my other pants!"

The sad thing was, that probably wasn't something he said just for effect.

"What do you need?"

"A screwdriver would work."

"I think I have one in the garage."

"The garage isn't locked?"

"No."

"But the house is."

"Yes."

"You see where I'm going with this."

"It was an accident."

He sighed. "Fine. Get me a screwdriver."

She smirked. "Dirty."

"I knew you were gonna say that."

She ran around the other side of the house to get a screwdriver, praying that Babette was sleeping.

When she returned with it, she made to toss it up to him. "Whoa, wait a minute. You'll poke my eye out if you throw it at me. Come up the ladder, I'll meet you halfway."

It was easier said than done. She didn't want to climb to the top rung of the ladder because she liked her neck just the way it was, but Luke couldn't stretch far enough if she didn't. Finally she kicked off her shoes, steadied herself against the trunk of the tree and cautiously took the last step. His hand brushed the handle of the screwdriver.

And suddenly, there were sirens and flashing lights and she overbalanced, startled. Luke grabbed for her, but even as she steadied herself, he slipped on the steep pitch of the roof and slid, barely catching her gutter with his hands as the rest of his body swung in midair. Lorelai gasped, and a loud megaphone voice said, "COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP"!"

The gutter broke, and Luke went crashing into the fortunately-located bushes below.

"Luke!" Lorelai half-climbed, half-fell down the ladder. Luke was just picking himself out of the bushes when a bright light shined in their faces.

"FREEZE!"

They froze all right, staring into the light. "Kirk?" Luke said. "Is that you? Is this some kind of joke?"

+++

It was most definitely not a joke.

It took the mug shot and the fingerprinting to really drive it home, though. That, and the desk sergeant teasing Luke for racking up quite a rap sheet, when his fingerprints popped up in the Lytchfield database.

It had most definitely been driven home by the time Sookie didn't answer her phone. With Rory and Emily in Europe -- where Rory was more than welcome to find a convent and stay until she came to her senses, as far as Lorelai was concerned -- there was really only one person they could call to bail them out.

"I can't believe my boss called me to bail him out of jail," Lane said, yawning as they exited the station. She was wearing a t-shirt and pajama bottoms.

"I can't believe every single officer on duty was new in town and didn't know I was being arrested for breaking into my own house! If they'd just let us stop at your truck, I could have found my purse and showed them."

"I can't believe I ended up in jail again."

"Again?" Lane asked, slanting her gaze toward Luke.

"I mean. For the first time. Ever. And the last."

"Whatever."

Lorelai's stomach grumbled loudly. She whimpered. "Mm. Hungry."

"Didn't you eat dinner?" Lane asked.

"Only what landed in my mouth when it got dumped on me by the waiter."

"Mad or clumsy?"

"Huh?"

"The waiter. Was he mad or clumsy?"

"Oh. Clumsy. Also very 'waiter, there's a fly in my soup.'"

"Ah." Lane nodded knowingly.

"Don't eat at Silvio's in Hartford," Luke advised gruffly.

Lane gave him a wide-eyed look. "Why, I never eat anywhere but Luke's Diner!"

He glared. "I'm not giving you a raise for bailing me out of jail."

"I just hope you realize I'm writing this on my timecard." Again, she yawned widely. "Well, I'm going home. Oh, Lorelai." She pulled out a set of keys and selected one to take off the ring. "Here's your extra key back."

Lane took off across the square, toward the apartment she shared with Zach and Brian. Luke stared after her. "I...fell off a roof and this whole time there was a key that wasn't locked in your house?"

"You were the one who didn't want to get Lane involved!"

"Well yeah! Did you see the Mrs. Kim face?"

"I saw the Mrs. Kim face! It was scary! That's why I didn't tell you Lane still had a key from when she stayed at my place."

"Why didn't you ask her for it when we met at the diner?"

"I was..." She laughed. "I was kind of hoping we might stay at your place."

"Oh."

Her stomach grumbled again. "I need to go home and eat Pop-Tarts right now. Possibly untoasted."

"Don't...don't eat Pop-Tarts. Stay. I'll make you something."

They'd reached the door of the diner. The dim lights did look inviting. But then Luke did something she'd never seen him do before. He opened his mouth and yawned loudly.

"No, don't make me food. Go in and go to bed. I'll see you tomorrow?" she said hopefully.

Luke sighed. "I did fall off a roof today. It might be best if I don't attempt any acrobatics tonight."

She smiled. "Acrobatics, huh?"

And he blushed.

Luke put his hand on her hip and pulled her in, and this time Taylor didn't interrupt them as they kissed, right on the street corner, for anyone to see. Well, anyone who was out at midnight in Stars Hollow.

She kept expecting Kirk to run by naked.

+++

Lorelai was stumbling down the front steps the next morning, on her way to her coffee fix, when Babette cornered her. Well, cornered was technically the wrong word, since she wasn't in a corner, but it suited well enough. She hoped Luke had remembered to get his truck.

"Oh, honey, I am so sorry. I didn't realize it was you!"

"What?" Lorelai blinked at her blearily.

"I mean, I looked out the window, and there was these people climbin' a ladder up to your roof! So I called the cops! I mean, I coulda looked a little closer, but all I saw was boobs!" She threw her hands up in the air as if illustrating the enormity of these supposed breasts.

"Wait, you were the one who called the cops?"

"I thought it was cat burglars!" Babette exclaimed.

"You thought it was...Babette, it was Luke and me!"

"Oh, I know, honey, and boy do I wanna hear about that later." She winked and elbowed Lorelai in the ribs. "But like I said, all I saw was boobs, and it was like The Avengers or The Thomas Crown Affair or somethin'! Anyway, I'm sorry, honey. Gotta go! The cats get cranky if they don't get fed, ya know." And Babette took off toward her house, leaving Lorelai staring after her.

It just figured. You try to be sneaky, and it ends in disaster.

She was never wearing that top with a padded bra again.

"The Avengers?" she wondered aloud.

+++

The diner was full when she arrived. There was one spot left at the counter, and if she didn't get it, she'd have to ask one of the losers there by themselves if she could share their table, and Luke always yelled at her when she did that.

It was funny, she never really thought of herself as there alone. Not when she was at Luke's.

She made a beeline for the empty spot at the counter, right by the register, too, which was perfect. Sure, you got crowded by a bunch of stinky people paying their bill, but that meant Luke was at the register, too.

She was really going to have to think about that some time. For now, she was just grateful that Michel had the morning shift covered, and she could take her time.

About halfway there, Kirk stepped in front of her. "Lorelai." He blinked.

She checked to make sure her shirt was covering all her goodies.

"Hi, Kirk."

"I'd like to speak to you alone, if you'd care to step outside."

She eyed the seat at the counter. Luke caught her eye and gave her just the barest smile.

"Uh, Kirk, I'm really hungry, and..."

"This will only take a moment."

She sighed. "Okay. Sure." She followed Kirk outside.

"I just wanted to apologize for my...earlier indiscretions."

"You mean running around the square naked?"

"No." He folded his hands. "That happens more often than you might think."

"More than I wanted to know, Kirk."

"I'll take note of that. No, what I'm referring to, you might remember, is the unfortunate incident wherein I told Miss Patty of what I witnessed the night of the inn's test run."

"Yeah, I wondered how you remembered anything from when you were sleepwalking."

"It's much to complicated to go into right now. You said you were hungry."

"Yeah."

"Anyway, I just wanted to apologize. And to say that, while I know I attempted to court you at one time, I'm very happy with Lulu and I wish you and Luke the best of luck."

"Boy, that was a lovely, luscious mouthful of words, wasn't it?" She laughed.

He blinked. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

Kirk turned and walked off down the street. She shrugged and slipped back inside.

Of course, someone had taken her spot by the register. Damn it.

Luke walked by with a rag and a pot of coffee. He stopped and stood quite a bit closer than he would have two weeks ago. "Hey, I saved you a seat."

"You did?" He gestured toward the other end of the counter, by the donuts. One of the seats had a flannel shirt draped over it. "Aw, I'm gonna write your name all over my Peachee folder!"

He glared. She took her rightful place by the donuts, holding the soft flannel shirt in her lap. Not caring who saw, she brought it to her face and inhaled deeply.

Luke saw her, and smiled. "My place? Tonight?"

She nodded and demanded coffee. And waffles.

And really, thank God she wasn't fifteen anymore. She would have been mortified back then that Luke saw her smell his shirt. When really, it was meant for him to see, anyway.

--

end.

FINALLY.