SUMMARY:  Luke goes shopping.  Spoilers through "Raincoats & Recipes."

THANKS: To Em, Jo, Lu, and Philateley for the beta. :)

NOTE: This fan_the_vote story was written for chicklet25.

This, Luke thought, is exactly why girlfriends are a pain in the ass.

Oh, sure, you get great company, regular sex, and, considering his girlfriend was a Gilmore, pretty much nonstop entertainment. Everything's going great.  You think you've got it all.

And then you end up here.

Luke stifled a groan, ignoring the brightly colored women and girls streaming past him, disappearing like well-dressed lemmings through the shiny glass doors.  Luke stood, arms crossed, trying to work up the nerve to go inside.

The mall.

Even the words made him shudder.  So much for the independent proprietor.  Who needs actual customer service when you can put 73 variations of the same store in a big, architecturally repulsive, concrete bunker and then charge 250%?

Oh, how Luke hated the mall.

But Lorelai's birthday was fast approaching and a fancy dinner just wasn't going to cut it.  They'd been dating nearly a year, and while he'd made it through Christmas without caving to consumerism, Luke knew he needed to get her something good.

Hence the mall.

But he really, really, really didn't want to go inside.  It was pretty much his last resort.  He'd tried to find something in town, but his choices were limited to groceries, books, or cutesy tourist crap.

Thankfully, Sookie'd intercepted his panicked dash toward the damn *cat* store, of all places.  "Luke!" she'd shrieked, those tiny fingers of his digging into his arm.  "What are you--?"

"Cat store," he'd answered in a semi-daze.

"I need you to focus."  Sookie'd shaken him.  "Lorelai does not need a kitty welcome mat!  Concentrate!  Good.  Now look at me.  Luke," she'd said, enunciating carefully, "Lorelai doesn't like cats, remember?"

"She doesn't dislike cats," Luke had countered, more than a little desperately.

"Luke!" Sookie had shouted.

Luke had glanced one last time at the cat store, then nodded in defeat.  "Yeah."

"Okay," Sookie'd answered, sounding relieved.  "You know what you need to do?"

He'd shaken his head, eyes wide with terror.  Because he'd known what was coming.

"Yes," Sookie had told him firmly.  "The mall."

He'd resisted as long as he could, but here he was.  At the mall.

God help him.

With a muttered curse, Luke pulled open a glass door covered with disgusting handprints and entered a couple thousand square feet of hell.

It was a lot cooler than he'd imagined hell would be.  Almost too cool, come to think of it.  But there were a lot of annoying other people, and when Luke pictured hell, he pictured other people.

Children.  All over the place.  Babies squalling in strollers.  Kids throwing tantrums outside Kay-Bee.  Preteens roving the temperature-controlled corridors like packs of poorly dressed animals.

Luke halted four steps into the place and shuddered.  He cast one longing glance over his shoulder at the bright, natural light beckoning him from the mammoth parking lot.  Would it be so terrible to get Lorelai something from the cat store?  There had to be something within those feline-stenciled walls that didn't have a cat on it.

A small child barreled right into Luke's knee, then fell to the tastefully neutral tiles and started to wail.  Wincing, Luke moved back a couple of steps.  "Hey, there, uh... kid."

One hundred pounds of concerned mother came careening toward Luke, and he sidestepped.  "Oh, good.  Mommy's here."  Luke grimaced at the sound of his own voice pronouncing the word "mommy."

Satisfied that the stupid kid was taken care of, he turned and headed down the mall, his desperate gaze slipping past each sign, searching for the answer to his problem.

It was no use.  They were all clothing stores, and Luke had no intention of ever making that mistake again.  He'd bought Nicole a dress once and, utterly flummoxed by the way women's sizes worked, managed to offend her by buying the dress a couple sizes too small for her.

Lorelai would probably laugh and then squeeze that body of hers into it anyway, but Luke wasn't going to take the chance.

He took a moment to glare at an Auntie Annie's pretzel store, cursing under his breath about the creeping corporatization of America.  That's when he saw it.

The perfect place to buy Lorelai a gift.

If only he could convince himself to go in.

***

Luke stood a few feet outside the store's entryway, arms crossed, grimacing.

He was a man of simple tastes.  Comfortable flannel shirts.  Faded blue jeans.  Plaid comforters on his bed.  Tame colors on the walls.  Sensible food.

There was nothing sensible or tame about the store in front of him.  Of course, there was really nothing sensible or tame about his girlfriend, which was why he couldn't quite bring himself to turn tail and run.

Luke took one step, then another, and then he was inside.  Surrounded by pink.  And sparkles.  And cutesy crap.

Closing his eyes, he inhaled slowly and reminded himself that he was in love with Lorelai, and if it took a trip into the Hello Kitty store to keep her happy, he'd gut it out.

"Hi!" chirped an entirely too chipper voice.

Startled, Luke opened his eyes and took an instinctive step back from the tiny woman in the too tiny t-shirt.  "Um, hi."

"Can I help you find anything?"

"No, no," he said.  "I'm just..." Luke averted his eyes from the distorted Hello Kitty stretched across her ample chest, "looking."

"Great!" she replied cheerily.  "Let me know if I can help you with anything."

He tried to smile, but suspected it looked a hell of a lot more like a grimace.  Bracing himself, he turned toward the wall of pink, wondering if he should call Sookie.  Because she'd had a decent point about Lorelai not liking cats.  But he'd been reduced to making waffles that had little mouthless cat faces on them one morning at Lorelai's, so he was pretty sure she'd appreciate more Hello Kitty insanity.

He scanned the wall, almost physically rebuffed by the sheer... pinkness of it all.  Hello Kitty notebooks and pencils and folders and bags.  Luke stepped farther into the store, still fighting the urge to flee.  The next section contained a slightly less obnoxious line of products -- a small black cat's face on tan and yellow merchandise.

Now that Luke could support.  Except for the cat-face on everything, which was actually slightly cute in a way that Luke would never, ever admit aloud.  Because it was a cutesy cat-face and he was not that guy.  Also, there were pastel flowers.

He moved further, squinting up at a baby blue display.  Blue leather wallets with Hello Kitty's face and something written in French.

The store was beginning to overwhelm him with the bright colors and the sparkles and the sheer immaturity of it all.  He stumbled back away from the wall, turning at the last second to avoid knocking over a display of about twenty million pens with dangling Hello Kitty heads or sparkling Hello Kitty graphics.

"Oh, God," Luke muttered.  He couldn't take it.  Lorelai would just have to deal with something from the cat store.  Or, hell, maybe he'd take her to the mall and hand her his credit card while he sat outside.  That might work.

Anything to get him the hell out of--

And that's when he saw it.

Luke stumbled to a halt in the middle of the store, gazing up at his salvation.  The chirpy, chesty clerk appeared at his elbow.  "Find something you like, sir?"

Nodding, Luke pointed.  "That," he said.  "I need to buy that."

***

"Ooooh," Lorelai cooed, eyeing the gift-wrapped box with sparkling eyes.

They'd had a lovely dinner at her place, a dinner that he'd cooked for her.  When he'd told her he'd make her a birthday dinner, he'd seen the disappointment she'd tried to hide.  Thankfully, Sookie's insistence that he go to the damn mall had paid off -- though he was still trying to purge the purple, sparkly Hello Kitty backpack from his mind.

So after dinner, Luke cleared the table, then ran out to his truck to bring in her present.  He placed it in the middle of her small kitchen table and sat back to enjoy the spectacle.  Lorelai Gilmore and gifts were always amusing.

"It's big," she simpered, waggling her eyebrows at him.

"That's what you always say," Luke tossed back with a smirk.

Delighted, she laughed aloud and reached for the box.  She lifted it, tilting her head as she weighed it.  She was a freakishly good guesser.  "Hmmm," she murmured, "lighter than a breadbox..."

Luke reached over and placed a hand on the box just in time.  "Don't shake it."

Lorelai stared at him with that playful half-grin of hers.  "A large, breakable item.  Luke Danes, you bought me a Ming vase!"

With a snort, he crossed his arms and leaned back.  "Would you just open it?"

She beamed at him.  "I'm savoring."

"Savor faster," Luke ordered.

Lorelai leaned over the table, giving him a damn good look down her dress.  "That's not what you usually say," she answered saucily.

"Open your present," he grumbled, trying unsuccessfully to stop grinning at her.

She lowered her voice.  "But you know I like it slow, Luke."

He rolled his eyes.  "Lorelai, you keep going like that and you won't get to open your present until tomorrow morning."

She threw a hand up in the air.  "Whoooah, whoa, whoa, there, Dirk Diggler.  I have a present here to open."  She leaned back in her chair, taking in the sedately wrapped box with the small, tasteful bow on top.  "Very Luke Danes wrapping," she commented.  "You couldn't find actual plaid paper?"

"I can take the present back, you know," he threatened with absolutely no conviction.

"I'm only asking so I'll know where to look for wrapping paper the next time I buy you a present," Lorelai answered with a smirk.  "Which may be quite a long wait, depending on what's inside here."

"How do you ever get any work done on time?" Luke wondered aloud.

"Duh," Lorelai answered, "I don't savor work!"

"Open."  Luke reached over and pushed the box toward her.

Finally, she untied the bow and gave him a look.  "Actual ribbon?  I'm impressed."

"Yeah, well, Liz sent me home with about fourteen pounds of decorative ribbon last summer."

Lorelai grinned at the memory.  "Ah, so it's Renaissance Ribbon.  Very nice."  Then she frowned.  "Did Liz send you home with the present, too?"

"Yes," Luke answered sarcastically, "because cardboard boxes were quite common in the 1500s."

"Awww."  Lorelai grinned.  "You bought me a cardboard box!"

"Would you open your damn present?"

She took a moment to loop the maroon ribbon around her neck and raise her eyebrows at Luke.  "Okay," she said.  "Present time!"  She reached for the wrapping paper, then paused.  "You're not going to sing Happy Birthday?"

Luke stared at her.  "Can you see me singing Happy Birthday?"

"No," she admitted.  "But then I couldn't see you singing Jethro Tull either, but that time in the truck--"

"Okay, okay," Luke interrupted, hoping like hell he wasn't actually blushing.  "Enough.  No singing."

Lorelai heaved an exaggerated sigh.  "Fine.  No one loves me."  She tore a skinny strip of paper from the top of the present and eyed what she'd uncovered.  Her eyebrows lifted in surprise.  "Pink?" she asked, surprised.  "You got me something in a pink cardboard box?"

"Why don't you open it and find out?"

"Oh, oh!" Lorelai clapped her hands in delight.  "It's a Barbie dreamhouse, isn't it?  You remembered my story about how Emily wouldn't let me have a Barbie dreamhouse until Barbie learned to stop dressing like a tart in those hot pink suits and plastic high heels and you got me a Barbie dreamhouse!"

Luke frowned.  "Plastic high heels?"

"Lorelai, dear," Lorelai said in a flawless imitation of Emily, "women of breeding do not wear plastic shoes."

"But wasn't Barbie plastic?"

"Well, yeah," Lorelai grinned.  "That was strike three!"

Luke shook his head.  "Whatever.  It's not a Barbie dreamhouse."

Lorelai peeled another narrow strip off and studied the box.  "Oh," she said, her eyes lighting up as she looked at Luke.  "You didn't."

He smiled back at her.  "Maybe I did."

The rest of the wrapping paper was flung in all directions as Lorelai tore it from the box.  Her mouth dropped open and she stared at it in awe.  "Luke Danes," she whispered reverently.  "You are a God."

He shrugged with false modesty.  "Well..."

Lorelai pried open the box and reached inside, pulling out the big white and pink coffeemaker and setting it on the table.  She reached back into the box to retrieve the pink-handled coffee pot with Hello Kitty's face etched into the glass.  "Wow," she said.  "You bought me a Hello Kitty coffeemaker!"

He nodded.  "Yes."

"Two of my favorite things in the world, all wrapped up together!" she continued, her fingers tracing the painted on Hello Kitty flying a tiny prop plane across the front of the coffeemaker.  "Luke.  It's *beautiful.*"

He was quite proud of himself.  "I'm just glad you like it."  That brief foray into hell was worth it to make her so happy.

Lorelai jumped out of her seat and straddled his knees, looping her arms around his neck.  "You," she declared, "are the best boyfriend ever."

"Well," he demurred with a shrug.  "I just know what you like."

She waggled her eyebrows.  "Very true."  She leaned in and kissed him.  "I'm just impressed you were able to find the Sanrio website."

Luke blinked.  "The... what?"

Tilting her head, she repeated, "The Sanrio website.  You know, where you--"  She stopped midsentence, a smile growing on her lips.  "Wait.  You went to the store?"

Luke stared at her in horror.  "There's a website?"

Laughing, Lorelai leaned forward and hugged him tightly, her body shaking against his in a very pleasant way.  "Oh, I wish I'd seen you in the Hello Kitty store.  You must have been horrified."

Luke grumbled and tightened his grip on her.  "Damn straight."

Lorelai pulled back, still grinning widely.  "You love me enough to go into the mall!"

He tried to glare at her.  He really did.  But she was right.  "Yeah.  Happy birthday."

Lorelai leaned in and kissed him again, more passionately this time.  "I promise," she whispered against his lips, "I'll make it up to you."

With that, she rose to her feet and reached out for his hand.  Luke let her tug him to his feet and lead him toward the stairs.  "It was very traumatic," he told her.

She snickered and glanced back at him.  "Bet I can make it worth your while."  She gained the top stair and turned to face him, looking at him with a heated gaze.  "Bet I can make you sing Happy Birthday to me in gratitude."

"I'd like to see you try," Luke shot back.

"Deal," she agreed.

Luke grinned and followed her to bed.

THE END

Notes: Yes, the Hello Kitty coffeemaker does exist. Extra special thanks to Em for finding the perfect Lorelai Gilmore present. ;)

Comments

*giggles*

that was perfect.

Posted by: kel on September 24, 2004 02:54 AM

Oh, that was perfect! I can just picture Em reading this. L/L *and* Hello Kitty! hee!

Marvelous portrayal of Luke, delightful Lorelai (she would SO make things hard on Luke and then squee like that when she opened her prezzie) and an awesome story. :)

But how exactly would you buy a dress too SMALL for Nicole? The woman is all skin and bones. At least she was the last time we saw her, pre- mailed in divorce.

Posted by: Cassie on September 24, 2004 03:32 AM

omg, i love you. i want to have your tiny pink sparkly babies. wait, can they be Luke's babies. 'cause that would be awesome.

seriously, your Luke rocked and the story was just a lovely bedtime tidbit.

Posted by: wyoluvr on September 25, 2004 02:12 AM

Oh, noooooo! That actually is the perfect Lorelai present. And your L/L banter is, as always, delightful. Wonderful story -- I loved every word.

Posted by: LegalBlonde on September 25, 2004 12:22 PM