Current mood:	accomplished
Current music:	Hear Me Out by Frou Frou

Chapter Two: Cause Tap Writ Hip Any

-

It was almost dark when Jess left the bridge with half of Huck Finn read and half of the packet of questions on Huck Finn answered. Luke was outside, looking for something, someone - him, maybe? - down the street, and he stopped behind the closest tree. He peeked out and Luke was still staring, half-turned away from him. A few minutes later, with four books in his pockets and looking as if he had just shoplifted all of them, and an uncle who still hadn't moved, Jess put all the books back into the back and stomped back across the bridge. He circled the town, cut through a couple yards and an alley - a clean, lighted alley because no filthy, dark alleys could exist in Stars Hollow - and slipped into Doose's.

Inside the market, Jess wandered the aisles. Dean wasn't working tonight. He found a sparse selection of flashlights and took the cheapest one. Taylor was behind the register. Jess glared and dropped the flashlight on the counter.

"Now what could you possibly need a flashlight for at this hour?" Taylor asked suspiciously.

"None of your business."

"Planning some late night heist, are we?"

"How much for the flashlight?" Jess demanded loudly, pointedly.

"How do I know that that's even your money? I seem to recall that the last time you came in here, money disappeared from the donation pot for Stars Hollow's very first traffic light."

"Oh jeez. Forget it," he snarled.

He threw the door open so hard that it bounced off the wall and slammed shut behind him. Jess stalked to Luke's, scowling as skirted by, noticing and not caring that he walked into Magneto's plastic prison. Luke didn't mention the bag he carried, probably because he had seen him bolt out of Doose's. Once inside the apartment he dropped his bag and kicked it across the apartment. It sailed into one of the boxes his mother had only sent over yesterday; it smacked against the wooden floor. Jess belly-flopped onto the couch.

Some time later he was still awake, not necessarily comfortable but too close to sleep to change positions. Downstairs he could hear tarps being ripped off, chairs being stacked loudly onto tables, something glass breaking and his uncle cursing. A few minutes later Luke ascended the stairs, opened the door and slammed it shut.

Jess' mind rapidly sifted through the day's event, trying to figure out what he had done, tensed as he waited for Luke to turn his anger to him. Rather than yelling, he heard him run into a box, swear at it, stumble over more boxes, grumble, and finally reach his bed.

Quietly, Jess rolled over onto his back. He pulled the blanket off the top of the couch and fell asleep in a comfortable position.

-

In the morning, Luke wasn't in bed, which was normal as it was - he glanced at the alarm clock - past eight on a Saturday. Jess flipped it to snooze. He got out of bed and, after a brief visit to the lavatory, found his discarded and slightly abused bag. He pulled out Huck Finn and the questions, which he had stuffed into it as a bookmark; an hour and half later he tossed it into the nearest box, finished.

He showered and changed and felt presentable by ten. He was an hour late for his shift, but early for the Gilmores.

As soon as he passed through the curtain that separated domestic life from work, Luke confronted him.

"Hey, what happened? I set your alarm for eight-thirty."

"Are you sure it had batteries in it this time?">

"That happened once, once, and I still think you took those batteries out," Luke snapped.

"Relax, Heathcliff. It's Saturday. The rush doesn't come in 'til noon."

"No, but I told you to be down here an hour ago. When I tell you to be down here by a certain time, I expect you to be down here by that time. It's called responsibility, Jess! And you better start living up some of yours right now!" he shouted, face contorted, turning red.

"Hey! I'm doing here, aren't I? In a shirt that won't scare away your freakin' customers!" he shouted back, matching his Luke's volume. "Now either put me to work or I'm outta here!"

Luke threw a rag and an order pad at him. "Shut up and be polite to my customers!"

Jess began wiping off once table so viciously that he upset the pepper shaker. He set it back up and wiped the table again, less aggressively.

"Excuse me. What's the special today?"

Jess bit back the acerbic answers that immediately came to mind and usually immediately out of his mouth. Instead, he answered monotonously, "Four-slice french toast."

"Sounds great. I'll have that."

"Sure," he said, scribbling down the order. He took it back to Caesar.

There was his effort. His daily alotment had now been used up. Luke had better have noticed it.

About twenty minutes later Lorelei and Rory came in. Luke saw them, about-faced and vanished into the storage room. Lorelei frowned, following him tentatively. Jess placed a cup on the counter, where Rory had sat down, and filled it with coffee.

"What's goin' on there?" Jess asked conversationally, nodding towards the storeroom.

"They had a paint date last night and mom forgot."

"Huh."

"So how'd you like Huck Finn?"

"Wasn't the first time I'd read it."

"Yeah?"

"I was six. Made more sense this time."

"And? Wha'd you think of it?" she urged.

He shrugged, uncomfortable with the prospect of deeper conversation. Not thinking, usually when he was screaming, his verbal skills were great; once thought was involved, they declined. Then he shut down. Forgot about worries and uneasiness, forgot about thinking. To Rory, he hadn't even paused.

"Huck knew more than society."

"But he didn't even go to school."

"If you measures intelligence by what you learn in school."

"I'm intrigued," Rory said.

"He knew how to survive on his own. He had problems, and he solved them. Not always legally - or even the way he thought people would want him to - but at least he figured it out on his own, which is more than can be said for the majority of people. And he seemed pretty satisfied with his decisions. Including his dressing up as little 'Sarah Mary.'"

Rory laughed, infecting him with the same affliction, which he stubbornly fought off.

"Luke, please say something. Anything. Call me a rat." Lorelei paused. Luke headed over to take Kirk's order, readily and willingly. "Luke, c'mon!"

Lorelei slide and lifted herself up into the stool next to Rory. Jess poured her a cup of coffee.

"Breakfast or lunch?" he asked.

"Blueberry pancakes and chili cheese fries."

"Gross!" Rory made a face.

"Pregnant. Got it," Jess said.

"On separate plates."

He wrote down the order, ignoring her glare, ignoring her when her eyes got wide too, but was mildly baffled when she smiled - leered, almost - at him.

"Hey, Jess," she crooned sugarly, "can you do me a favor?"

"No."

"Can I have you key to the diner?"

"Don't have one."

"What? How do you close then?"

"With Luke's key," he said.

"Oh," Lorelei said, deflating.

Jess got Rory's order and handed the paper back to Caesar. When he returned with their food Lorelei wasn't talking, and Rory had given up on getting her to talk. Jess set their plates down in front of them.

"If you come by around eleven-thirty the door might be open," Jess casually mentioned, rolled his eyes, looked as if it were the most agonizing sentence to say.

"Oh. Oh," she perked. "Okay. Remind me to get in touch with Mrs. Doubtfire's brother later."

"What?" Rory asked.

"Feels like I need to assume a new identity to be involved in Luke's life again," she nodded slowly, wisely.

"And then you'll learn how to cook so you can see your kids again. Forget about me, I wanna see the kid you had with Luke. My very own half-sister or brother!"

"Evil daughter," Lorelei mumbled and began eating.

-

At eleven-twenty-five Jess was behind the counter reading The Prince and the Pauper. Luke had gone to bed two and a half hours ago after Jess offered - very sarcastically - to close the diner on the pretenses of "being more responsible." Luke had sighed, slapped the keys into his hand and told him to come get him if there was a fire.

Five minutes later he unlocked the door, flipped the light switch off and headed upstairs. He was just going behind the counter when some started knocking, incessantly, on the door. With an annoyed "uh", Jess turned around. He flipped the light back on.

Outside was Lorelei, still knocking, staring at the ground. He waited for her to look up and then pointed at the doorknob. Confused, she turned the knob, gasping in surprise when the door opened. She quickly came in and shut the door.

"I fell asleep. I thought it was late and you'd given up on me. I was watching t.v. and drinking soda because I'd finished all of the coffee. Oh my god. No more Vanilla Coke, no more Dances With Wolves ever again. Damn Kevin Costner." She stopped herself and took a breath. "So, where's the paint?"

"Probably in back," he motioned.

Lorelei headed into the storeroom. As he retrieved his book from the counter he heard plastic moving, then heard skin smacking plastic, and Lorelei making a "Dah" noise. He glanced in and found her wrestling with one of the tarps. Jess shoved the novel into his back pocket and snatched the tarp off her, glaring at her flailing arms, glaring at her, daring her to say something when he took it and spread it over one of the tables, daring her to say something when he set up the rest of the tarps. Had she even uttered the first word of a sentence Jess would have dropped them and said "Goodnight." But she had said nothing, hadn't even looked at him while she lugged out the paint and the brushes.

Before he went up to bed, he prepared a fresh pot of coffee.

Responsibility.

It wasn't very responsible of him to leave the keys of the diner with a woman who wasn't even employed there.

Effort.

Pour water, rip bag, add coffee. Cover a few tables with some stupid pieces of plastic. They were tasks that required absolutely no brain power, thus no effort.

He was still irresponsible; he still did the very least he could possibly do.

He sat in the diner and waited to open it to Rory's mother as he had implied that he would. He went to school and did his homework.

He could stop whenever he wanted to. But, since he wasn't being responsible, wasn't putting in any effort, there was nothing to stop.

Except that little bit of responsibility he was living up to and that small amount of effort he was putting in.

-

A month before the end of school, his sophomore year, Jess idly looked through the mail Luke had left on the kitchen table. He paused at the letter addressed to Mr. Jess Mariano, return address: Chilton Preparatory. He ripped the envelope open and read.

"Dear Mr. Mariano, we are happy to inform you that you have been accepted into Chilton..."

Also enclosed was a preaddressed, prepaid envelope in which to send the parental approval form and the tuition check. Jess gawked at the sum of money they expected to allowed him to come to their school. Included in the expenses were school uniforms, one for every day of the school week.

Uniforms.

No.

He would casually show Dean the letter, watching him get angry at the idea of him going to his girlfriend's school, conveniently not correcting his incorrect assumption. He couldn't go.

Jess signed his name at the bottom of the approval form, on the line above "student signature." He considered forging the "parent/legal guardian signature", but instead he left the papers open, out on the table for Luke to notice and read, to sign if he wanted to. If Luke asked him about it, tried to even casually mention it, he would say that he didn't want to go. He would up school and go to work full time at Wal Mart and forget that he had ever received an acceptance letter from Chilton.

Going to a school that demanded to be paid for his attendance, going to a school that demanded he wear the same conformist clothes - and a tie, a tie, going to a school that embodied the very upper class he never wanted to associate with, mocked, and secretly loathed was ludicrous, unfathomable. It made absolutely no sense. Yet he had signed the paper.

He trudged downstairs for work, on time, which he proceeded to do obediantly and semi-politely. He gave Luke no reason to complain. When the diner was empty at nine, Jess muttered that he had homework to do, leaving without seeing Luke's shocked face, but hearing his shocked, "Okay."

Thirty minutes later, Luke came upstairs to see Jess sitting on his matress (Luke had finally snapped, purchased the building next door and expanded the apartment) with his school books spread out around him, one of them open in his lap. He had been taking notes on the chapter - they were for a grade - when he heard Luke coming up. He didn't care what Luke saw, what he thought, and then his thoughts shut down. Then the door opened and he lost his concentration; all he could do what stare at the text and pretend that he was reading it, not listening to find out what Luke did.

Luke saw the papers on the table and, to see if it was anything important, started reading. Jess watched from the corner of his eye as his uncle's eyebrows shot up and he picked up the letter. He sat down and read it. At one point Luke muttered an, "Oh, jeez," and Jess knew he had seen the cost.

As the beginnings of uneasiness began to settle, Jess decided his didn't care; it didn't matter. He didn't care of Luke wouldn't throw away that much money on him. There was no reason for him to. Not only was his attendance at Chilton unnecessary - a school was a school - but his uncle had no guarantee that his investment wouldn't be wasted. At any time Jess could get bored, or decide that the work wasn't important enough to put any effort into; he could decide that he didn't want the responsibility and his uncle's invest would be squandered.

Effort and responsibility. Responsibility and effort.

He wouldn't go; Luke wouldn't do it.

Luke looked over at him, mouth open to say something, but Jess glared at him so intensely that he was almost curling his lips and showing teeth.

One word about it, just one, and he would deny ever applying to Chilton.

"Do you want some dinner or somethin'?"

Jess shook his head. "I'm not hungry."

"Tomorrow, then."

"Whatever."

Luke got out his check book, wrote out the tuition fee, ripped it out and put it in the prepaid envelope along with the approval form. He sealed the envelope.

He was going to Effort and Responsibility.

He was going to Chilton.

Why?