An Alex Cabot Thanksgiving
Jun. 28th, 2007 06:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wizened_cynicRemember when I asked you a while back what you wanted to read? Well, one of you said that there should be a fic that takes place during the time before Alex and Lorelai have major gay gay gay gay crushes on each other, which, apparently, is all of two minutes, and so I wrote it. It's a Thanksgiving fic. In June. I'm a puzzle, okay?
A Tale of Two Pterodactyls
Alex cannot pinpoint the exact moment when she changed her mind about the town. Truth is, it happened gradually, like brainwashing or survival of the fittest.
In Stars Hollows's case, it was more like survival of the weirdest, but Alex isn't going to argue semantics.
If, however, she were asked at gunpoint to give a timeframe during which she grew accustomed to her new life, she'd put it at around Thanksgiving. Almost two months after she moved in.
In retrospect, it seems too soon. Not that it was Alex's fault, since she certainly hadn't anticipated it, no more than Taylor had anticipated being attacked by a live turkey during the elementary school pageant.
Things in Stars Hollow just happen.
She should know. She lives there.
*
Alex had volunteered to work at the first aid station because it was the only position that didn't require dressing up.
"You sure you don't want to be a pilgrim?" Lorelai had asked her repeatedly in the days before. "I think you would make a really hot pilgrim. You know, if pilgrims were hot. I've never heard of pilgrim porn. Maybe I should make some pilgrim porn, and thoroughly change society's conception of Puritans."
Lorelai giggled profusely at the idea, and Alex wondered again how Lorelai managed to be so unapologetic about how weird she was. It defied all sorts of logic.
In the end, Lorelai signed up for the pumpkin pie eating contest, and Alex resigned herself to handing out Band-Aids to schoolchildren. Lorelai seemed more animated than usual, which didn't surprise Alex too much, considering the obscene amounts of caffeine Lorelai consumed, but what did surprise her was the occasional flash of sadness that swept across Lorelai's face as she glanced around at the festivities.
It was Thanksgiving, and she and her daughter were still not speaking.
At least she still has a daughter, Alex thought. She tried not to be bitter, but it was hard. When her father was alive, they'd had parties, with guests and family streaming in from all parts of the country. After her father died, she and her mother had kept the holiday a quiet affair between the two of them.
She wondered what her mother was doing this year, what exactly she had to be thankful for.
*
Usually Lorelai did three Thanksgiving dinners.
"Three," Alex repeated, unable to gauge whether or not Lorelai was exaggerating.
"I actually managed four one year," Lorelai said," and I was still hungry after. You just need practice."
There were only going to be two Thanksgiving dinners this year, since Lorelai wasn't invited to her parents' and Rory was going to be attending the Kims'. Two dwindled down to one when Sookie and Jackson decided to take the kids to visit Jackson's family.
Dismayed at the change of plans, Lorelai declared that one dinner was not nearly enough, and that she and Alex would be hosting their own dinner at their place.
"Please tell me you're joking," Alex said.
"I don't joke when it comes to Thanksgiving," Lorelai told her. "It's a holiday devoted solely to food. Food and the spreading of diseases by European settlers to indigenous peoples. There is nothing joke-worthy about that."
"Who's going to cook?" Alex asked.
"We can learn," Lorelai said. Alex stared at her, and she said, "Luke will do it."
"So we're going to eat Thanksgiving dinner at Luke's, and then we'll invite him back to our place so he can make another Thanksgiving dinner for us."
"That is exactly what we're going to do."
"And that doesn't sound ridiculous at all to you."
"You know what, Claire?" Lorelai scowled. "You are not invited to my Thanksgiving dinner."
"Your imaginary Thanksgiving dinner where there isn't going to be any food."
"There is going to be food. Luke will cook it."
"Your imaginary Thanksgiving dinner where the food is going to be the same as the non-imaginary Thanksgiving dinner we will have two hours prior to it."
"You are not being supportive. I thought we were a team."
Alex didn't have a clue as to what she'd done to make Lorelai think that. Well, maybe a few clues. Like entering that asinine dance marathon with her, and indulging her petty insanities in general, since Hammond had told her to blend in and lay low.
"There's no i in team," Lorelai continued. "I can't do this alone, Claire. Maybe if I were a Renaissance woman, or Mandy Moore, or something."
"Mandy Moore?"
"She sings, she acts." Lorelai shrugged. "Doesn't she also write her own music?"
"How would I know?"
"Claire! Get with the program," Lorelai condescended playfully, and Alex rolled her eyes at her. Lorelai sobered up and said, "Let's me serious here for thirty seconds. I really think we should do this Thanksgiving thing. We'll invite people, set the table really nice, you can carve the turkey, and there will be pie. Two kinds of pie. Maybe three. With ice cream."
The idea seemed enticing enough. Not the three kinds of pie, of course, but the thought of sitting down to a nice, normal dinner with friends. She didn't have that many yet, but surely Lorelai would make up for it with all of hers. Alex Cabot might be dead, but Claire isn't, and Claire deserves normal too.
"Who will we invite?" she asked after several long minutes of consideration.
Lorelai beamed, aware that she had already won half the battle. "Well, you know. Luke."
"Because he has to make the dinner."
"You catch on fast," Lorelai crowed. "So, Luke. Miss Patty. Babette and Morey. Kirk, if his mother forgets to invite him."
"He lives in her house."
"You'll be surprised," Lorelai said sympathetically. She studied Alex. "What about you? You got any crazy relatives you want to introduce to us? Uncle Fester, Cousin It?"
Alex's pulse raced, and she took deep, deliberate breaths before answering. "Not really. They're all dead," she said, keeping it brisk. It usually kept them from prying.
Not Lorelai, though.
"All of them?" Lorelai said. "Every one last of them? Come on, what've you got to be ashamed of? Are they ex-cons? Scientologists? Were you created in a lab somewhere, Claire?"
"That's totally it," Alex deadpanned.
"Are you working for the CIA?" Lorelai asked. "Because you could tell me. I'm very trustworthy."
"If I did work for the CIA," Alex said, "and I told you, you'd be murdered for your knowledge."
"So you do work for the CIA. Have you met Jack Bauer?"
"Jack Bauer doesn't work for the CIA. Not only that, but Jack Bauer is fictitious."
"I know, I was just testing you. Stop making that face at me, Claire."
"What face?"
"The one that says you think I'm crazy."
"You are crazy."
"While that may be true, I also find it hard to believe everyone you're related to are dead. What about friends? You don't even have friends you want to invite for Thanksgiving? I mean, there are other people in Iowa, aren't there? Or did you kill and eat them all?"
Alex had thought of a million ways to answer this question, if she were ever required to. I used to be Amish. I got excommunicated when I ran away at seventeen. Alternatively, her family had died of the plague and she'd suffered from agoraphobia throughout most of her life and had to be homeschooled until she was thirty.
Yeah, because that made sense.
Nobody would believe the truth anyway. She was like Cassandra of Troy, only the citizens of Stars Hollow liked costumes a lot more.
"It's just me," she said, and walked away before Lorelai could ask further.
*
It was Lorelai's idea to invent a family for her.
"Your cousins are coming to Thanksgiving," she announced, once she had badgered Luke into her kooky scheme. "Bartholomew and Spartacus."
"Huh," said Alex.
"Bartholomew's the grumpy one, and Spartacus is a flirt."
"Your cousins are named Bartholomew and Spartacus?" Luke asked, eyebrows twitching. "What happened, did Marge Simpson marry Kirk Douglas?"
"It creeps me out that you know who Marge Simpson is," Lorelai said.
"Lorelai's insane," Alex explained, as if it weren't completely obvious already.
Luke said, "Tell me about it."
*
Stars Hollow is big on tradition, which is another way of saying that, because two hundred years ago, when the first town members put on the Thanksgiving pageant with live animals and actual Native Americans, two hundred years later they must follow suit and put on the Thanksgiving pageant with live animals and actual Native Americans.
They bought the turkey and the cow and the goats from a farm in Litchfield and Kirk was going to play the role of the Indian chief.
"You're native?" Alex asked him as he modeled his headdress in front of her.
"No, Czechoslovakian," Kirk answered. "We asked Gypsy to do it because we thought she was part-Cherokee, but she's actually Lebanese."
"Okay," said Alex. She needed to start remembering the "don't ask" part of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell method of dealing with the townspeople.
As the settlers, a group of third graders led by Taylor, presented the Indians with smallpox infested blankets, Andrew stormed away, claiming that the re-enactment was not only historically inaccurate but incredibly offensive. This prompted a loudly-murmured debate as to whether or not Andrew was part-native, which detracted from the play itself and Taylor had to break out of character to remind the audience to pay attention to what was going on.
Lorelai sighed contently as she sipped at her mug of apple cider. "Every year, Claire. Every year," she said. She rested her chin on Alex's shoulder, and added, "Maybe we should get you a part in the pageant next year. I don't think Kirk is really embodying the spirit of Chief Giant Raven Head very well."
"Yes, because I'm the spitting image of Chief Giant Raven Head," Alex replied, and good lord, it was completely offensive.
"Well, you didn't want to be a pilgrim."
"I don't want to be a pilgrim! I don't want to be anything. I'm not even sure I want to be here next year," Alex snapped, and Lorelai looked stunned for a moment, as if she couldn't fathom Alex leaving.
Lorelai lifted her chin from Alex's shoulder and sat squarely again, in her chair. They stayed quiet like that, not talking, until a high-pitched shriek permeated the air, followed by what was clearly Taylor's voice crying for help.
Lorelai turned to her. "This," she said, "is not what usually happens."
Before Alex could reply, Taylor was rushed to the first aid station, blood dripping from an open wound in the middle of his palm. "It pecked me," he gritted out, holding up his bloody hand, which Alex skillfully avoided. "I was trying to feed it, and it pecked me."
"He could have the bird flu," Kirk added despondently.
"He doesn't have the bird flu," Alex said.
"How could you be so sure, Claire?" Lorelai said.
Taylor moaned. "She's right. I could have the bird flu. We'd need to quarantine the town."
"We'd only need to quarantine you, Taylor."
"Again, Lorelai, thanks so much for helping."
"I'm just saying. It's not entirely impossible that he has the bird flu. He was bit by a bird. It drew blood. That's how you contract the bird flu!"
"A turkey's not a bird," Bootsy said, and they turned to stare at him.
"A turkey's a bird, Bootsy," Alex said.
"No, it isn't."
"Hear her on this, Bootsy," Lorelai said. "A turkey is a bird."
"So now I'm right," Alex said to her.
"A penguin's a bird," Bootsy said. "A turkey is not a bird."
"I think they're both birds," Kirk said. "What about a pterodactyl?"
"That's a dinosaur," Alex said.
"I'm pretty sure a turkey is not a bird," Bootsy insisted.
"No, Bootsy," Lorelai said. "A turkey is definitely a bird. A pterodactyl, though, is not a bird."
"Taylor got bit by pterodactyl?" asked the shaggy-haired teenager who was dating Lane. "Sweet!" he enthused, and wandered off, presumably to spread the good news.
"Would someone please pay attention to the fact that I am bleeding to death from my hand?" Taylor asked, wrapping part of the tablecloth around his wound, and glared at everybody.
It was remarkable that Alex still hadn't developed a migraine yet at this point. Maybe the town was growing on her. It was a frightening thought. "It's a surface wound, Taylor," she said, and moved her chair over so she could clean it with hydrogen peroxide. "I assure you, you will not bleed to death from it."
She rummaged through the first aid kit and extracted a pumpkin-shaped Band-Aid leftover from Halloween. Slapping it onto Taylor's hand, she said, "There you go."
"But what about the bird flu?" Taylor persisted.
"You're not going to get the bird flu, Taylor," Alex said.
"How do you know there isn't the remotest possibility that I will get the bird flu?"
"I don't," Alex said shortly, "but I can tell you, Taylor, that there is a fairly good chance you will not get the bird flu."
"That's because it's not a bird," Bootsy pointed out.
Alex jerked her thumb towards the direction of the parade and Lorelai quickly left with Bootsy and Kirk in tow.
Alone, Alex informed Taylor that the bird flu, which he did not have, nor will ever have, was not contracted through open wounds. It was, in fact, an airborne disease, a fact Alex immediately regretted telling him, because Taylor began freaking out about how he'd been holding the turkey for at least half an hour before.
"We breathed the same air," he said.
"You weren't on an airplane," Alex reassured him. "You should be fine."
"What if I'm not, Claire? Have you ever thought about that?"
Alex really hadn't. For one thing, the grass on their lawns would never be the same height again, which was an exhilarating thought. It would be like the French revolution all over again.
"I'm not going to live forever, you know, and this town counts on me. If anything happens to me, bird flu or some other sort of disease, or I get hit by one of those scooters children are riding all over the place these days --- there should be a law against that --- what's going to happen to Stars Hollow?"
Alex highly suspected a giant marble statue of Taylor in the town square would somehow be involved, in addition to a week-long memorial service, orchestrated by Taylor himself from beyond the grave.
"Claire, I want you to be Stars Hollow's Honorary Assistant Town Selectman."
Alex had always dreamed of going into politics, but becoming Stars Hollow's Honorary Assistant was not exactly what she'd had in mind. It was nothing like what she'd had in mind, and she fervently tried to decline the offer, especially when Taylor started comparing himself to JFK and her to Lyndon B. Johnson.
"First of all, you're not dead, Taylor," Alex said, "and second, I've only been living here for two months. Shouldn't you find someone who's more qualified?"
"You're the only person who knows the town rules and by-laws by heart," he said, and it was true: Alex had memorized them several weeks ago, when Taylor was harassing her about something minor and idiotic and she'd gone through the town codes to find a loophole so that he would back the hell off. "You're the only person I've ever known to show such an interest in the well-being of this town."
Alex didn't even know how to respond to that.
"Please, Claire. You're the only one I could trust. Won't you take into consideration the last pleas of a dying man? My goodness, HAVE YOU NO HEART?"
*
The parade was almost over when Lorelai returned to where Alex was.
"Where's Taylor?" she asked.
"Sent him home with some animal tranquilizers I got from the vet," Alex said.
Lorelai broke into a grin that reached all the way to China. "I like it when you try to be funny."
"Who says I'm trying to be funny? By the way," she added stoically, "I'm Stars Hollow's Honorary Assistant Town Selectman."
Hearing the words come out of her own mouth, it occurred to Alex for the first time that she might consider Stars Hollow second-best to her former life, but she was not second-best to them. She was their first choice, they actually wanted her here, and the thought of it made her simultaneously flattered and fearful.
A moment passed before Lorelai said, "You're never going to leave this town now."
Alex was doomed.
*
Dinner was a noisy affair, as most things were when it came to Lorelai. The turkey was perfect, and as Lorelai had promised, there were three kinds of pie. Patty polished off a bottle of wine and regaled the crowd with stories of her cage-dancing days, which probably only lasted a week, but sounded much longer.
It was nice. It wasn't quite home, but it was nice.
Alex woke in the middle of the night, ravenous. She had no idea how, since she'd eaten her own weight in turkey and sweet potatoes a couple of hours earlier. Hammond would attribute her appetite to the fine country air, but Alex suspected that the culprit was Lorelai's contagious eating habits.
Lorelai was already in the kitchen when she got there, poking at the last piece of pumpkin pie with disinterest. "Saved you the blueberry, since you don't like pumpkin," she said, as if she'd known Alex would come.
In the orange glow of the light from the hallway, Alex could see dirty dishes piled up by the sink, candy wrappers and stray popcorn and shredded napkins littering the floor of the living room. The house looked like a fairground after the carnival was over.
She sat down, and they ate in silence, periodically interrupted by the crickets outside, until Lorelai finally set down her fork and said, "I miss Rory."
"I know," said Alex, and went to take the ice cream out of the freezer. They would need it.
It's so fucking weird to write fic where those two are not yet fucking like speed-talking bunnies on crystal meth.
This is not an invitation for you to ask me to write fic where they fuck like speed-talking bunnies on crystal meth.
Alex cannot pinpoint the exact moment when she changed her mind about the town. Truth is, it happened gradually, like brainwashing or survival of the fittest.
In Stars Hollows's case, it was more like survival of the weirdest, but Alex isn't going to argue semantics.
If, however, she were asked at gunpoint to give a timeframe during which she grew accustomed to her new life, she'd put it at around Thanksgiving. Almost two months after she moved in.
In retrospect, it seems too soon. Not that it was Alex's fault, since she certainly hadn't anticipated it, no more than Taylor had anticipated being attacked by a live turkey during the elementary school pageant.
Things in Stars Hollow just happen.
She should know. She lives there.
*
Alex had volunteered to work at the first aid station because it was the only position that didn't require dressing up.
"You sure you don't want to be a pilgrim?" Lorelai had asked her repeatedly in the days before. "I think you would make a really hot pilgrim. You know, if pilgrims were hot. I've never heard of pilgrim porn. Maybe I should make some pilgrim porn, and thoroughly change society's conception of Puritans."
Lorelai giggled profusely at the idea, and Alex wondered again how Lorelai managed to be so unapologetic about how weird she was. It defied all sorts of logic.
In the end, Lorelai signed up for the pumpkin pie eating contest, and Alex resigned herself to handing out Band-Aids to schoolchildren. Lorelai seemed more animated than usual, which didn't surprise Alex too much, considering the obscene amounts of caffeine Lorelai consumed, but what did surprise her was the occasional flash of sadness that swept across Lorelai's face as she glanced around at the festivities.
It was Thanksgiving, and she and her daughter were still not speaking.
At least she still has a daughter, Alex thought. She tried not to be bitter, but it was hard. When her father was alive, they'd had parties, with guests and family streaming in from all parts of the country. After her father died, she and her mother had kept the holiday a quiet affair between the two of them.
She wondered what her mother was doing this year, what exactly she had to be thankful for.
*
Usually Lorelai did three Thanksgiving dinners.
"Three," Alex repeated, unable to gauge whether or not Lorelai was exaggerating.
"I actually managed four one year," Lorelai said," and I was still hungry after. You just need practice."
There were only going to be two Thanksgiving dinners this year, since Lorelai wasn't invited to her parents' and Rory was going to be attending the Kims'. Two dwindled down to one when Sookie and Jackson decided to take the kids to visit Jackson's family.
Dismayed at the change of plans, Lorelai declared that one dinner was not nearly enough, and that she and Alex would be hosting their own dinner at their place.
"Please tell me you're joking," Alex said.
"I don't joke when it comes to Thanksgiving," Lorelai told her. "It's a holiday devoted solely to food. Food and the spreading of diseases by European settlers to indigenous peoples. There is nothing joke-worthy about that."
"Who's going to cook?" Alex asked.
"We can learn," Lorelai said. Alex stared at her, and she said, "Luke will do it."
"So we're going to eat Thanksgiving dinner at Luke's, and then we'll invite him back to our place so he can make another Thanksgiving dinner for us."
"That is exactly what we're going to do."
"And that doesn't sound ridiculous at all to you."
"You know what, Claire?" Lorelai scowled. "You are not invited to my Thanksgiving dinner."
"Your imaginary Thanksgiving dinner where there isn't going to be any food."
"There is going to be food. Luke will cook it."
"Your imaginary Thanksgiving dinner where the food is going to be the same as the non-imaginary Thanksgiving dinner we will have two hours prior to it."
"You are not being supportive. I thought we were a team."
Alex didn't have a clue as to what she'd done to make Lorelai think that. Well, maybe a few clues. Like entering that asinine dance marathon with her, and indulging her petty insanities in general, since Hammond had told her to blend in and lay low.
"There's no i in team," Lorelai continued. "I can't do this alone, Claire. Maybe if I were a Renaissance woman, or Mandy Moore, or something."
"Mandy Moore?"
"She sings, she acts." Lorelai shrugged. "Doesn't she also write her own music?"
"How would I know?"
"Claire! Get with the program," Lorelai condescended playfully, and Alex rolled her eyes at her. Lorelai sobered up and said, "Let's me serious here for thirty seconds. I really think we should do this Thanksgiving thing. We'll invite people, set the table really nice, you can carve the turkey, and there will be pie. Two kinds of pie. Maybe three. With ice cream."
The idea seemed enticing enough. Not the three kinds of pie, of course, but the thought of sitting down to a nice, normal dinner with friends. She didn't have that many yet, but surely Lorelai would make up for it with all of hers. Alex Cabot might be dead, but Claire isn't, and Claire deserves normal too.
"Who will we invite?" she asked after several long minutes of consideration.
Lorelai beamed, aware that she had already won half the battle. "Well, you know. Luke."
"Because he has to make the dinner."
"You catch on fast," Lorelai crowed. "So, Luke. Miss Patty. Babette and Morey. Kirk, if his mother forgets to invite him."
"He lives in her house."
"You'll be surprised," Lorelai said sympathetically. She studied Alex. "What about you? You got any crazy relatives you want to introduce to us? Uncle Fester, Cousin It?"
Alex's pulse raced, and she took deep, deliberate breaths before answering. "Not really. They're all dead," she said, keeping it brisk. It usually kept them from prying.
Not Lorelai, though.
"All of them?" Lorelai said. "Every one last of them? Come on, what've you got to be ashamed of? Are they ex-cons? Scientologists? Were you created in a lab somewhere, Claire?"
"That's totally it," Alex deadpanned.
"Are you working for the CIA?" Lorelai asked. "Because you could tell me. I'm very trustworthy."
"If I did work for the CIA," Alex said, "and I told you, you'd be murdered for your knowledge."
"So you do work for the CIA. Have you met Jack Bauer?"
"Jack Bauer doesn't work for the CIA. Not only that, but Jack Bauer is fictitious."
"I know, I was just testing you. Stop making that face at me, Claire."
"What face?"
"The one that says you think I'm crazy."
"You are crazy."
"While that may be true, I also find it hard to believe everyone you're related to are dead. What about friends? You don't even have friends you want to invite for Thanksgiving? I mean, there are other people in Iowa, aren't there? Or did you kill and eat them all?"
Alex had thought of a million ways to answer this question, if she were ever required to. I used to be Amish. I got excommunicated when I ran away at seventeen. Alternatively, her family had died of the plague and she'd suffered from agoraphobia throughout most of her life and had to be homeschooled until she was thirty.
Yeah, because that made sense.
Nobody would believe the truth anyway. She was like Cassandra of Troy, only the citizens of Stars Hollow liked costumes a lot more.
"It's just me," she said, and walked away before Lorelai could ask further.
*
It was Lorelai's idea to invent a family for her.
"Your cousins are coming to Thanksgiving," she announced, once she had badgered Luke into her kooky scheme. "Bartholomew and Spartacus."
"Huh," said Alex.
"Bartholomew's the grumpy one, and Spartacus is a flirt."
"Your cousins are named Bartholomew and Spartacus?" Luke asked, eyebrows twitching. "What happened, did Marge Simpson marry Kirk Douglas?"
"It creeps me out that you know who Marge Simpson is," Lorelai said.
"Lorelai's insane," Alex explained, as if it weren't completely obvious already.
Luke said, "Tell me about it."
*
Stars Hollow is big on tradition, which is another way of saying that, because two hundred years ago, when the first town members put on the Thanksgiving pageant with live animals and actual Native Americans, two hundred years later they must follow suit and put on the Thanksgiving pageant with live animals and actual Native Americans.
They bought the turkey and the cow and the goats from a farm in Litchfield and Kirk was going to play the role of the Indian chief.
"You're native?" Alex asked him as he modeled his headdress in front of her.
"No, Czechoslovakian," Kirk answered. "We asked Gypsy to do it because we thought she was part-Cherokee, but she's actually Lebanese."
"Okay," said Alex. She needed to start remembering the "don't ask" part of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell method of dealing with the townspeople.
As the settlers, a group of third graders led by Taylor, presented the Indians with smallpox infested blankets, Andrew stormed away, claiming that the re-enactment was not only historically inaccurate but incredibly offensive. This prompted a loudly-murmured debate as to whether or not Andrew was part-native, which detracted from the play itself and Taylor had to break out of character to remind the audience to pay attention to what was going on.
Lorelai sighed contently as she sipped at her mug of apple cider. "Every year, Claire. Every year," she said. She rested her chin on Alex's shoulder, and added, "Maybe we should get you a part in the pageant next year. I don't think Kirk is really embodying the spirit of Chief Giant Raven Head very well."
"Yes, because I'm the spitting image of Chief Giant Raven Head," Alex replied, and good lord, it was completely offensive.
"Well, you didn't want to be a pilgrim."
"I don't want to be a pilgrim! I don't want to be anything. I'm not even sure I want to be here next year," Alex snapped, and Lorelai looked stunned for a moment, as if she couldn't fathom Alex leaving.
Lorelai lifted her chin from Alex's shoulder and sat squarely again, in her chair. They stayed quiet like that, not talking, until a high-pitched shriek permeated the air, followed by what was clearly Taylor's voice crying for help.
Lorelai turned to her. "This," she said, "is not what usually happens."
Before Alex could reply, Taylor was rushed to the first aid station, blood dripping from an open wound in the middle of his palm. "It pecked me," he gritted out, holding up his bloody hand, which Alex skillfully avoided. "I was trying to feed it, and it pecked me."
"He could have the bird flu," Kirk added despondently.
"He doesn't have the bird flu," Alex said.
"How could you be so sure, Claire?" Lorelai said.
Taylor moaned. "She's right. I could have the bird flu. We'd need to quarantine the town."
"We'd only need to quarantine you, Taylor."
"Again, Lorelai, thanks so much for helping."
"I'm just saying. It's not entirely impossible that he has the bird flu. He was bit by a bird. It drew blood. That's how you contract the bird flu!"
"A turkey's not a bird," Bootsy said, and they turned to stare at him.
"A turkey's a bird, Bootsy," Alex said.
"No, it isn't."
"Hear her on this, Bootsy," Lorelai said. "A turkey is a bird."
"So now I'm right," Alex said to her.
"A penguin's a bird," Bootsy said. "A turkey is not a bird."
"I think they're both birds," Kirk said. "What about a pterodactyl?"
"That's a dinosaur," Alex said.
"I'm pretty sure a turkey is not a bird," Bootsy insisted.
"No, Bootsy," Lorelai said. "A turkey is definitely a bird. A pterodactyl, though, is not a bird."
"Taylor got bit by pterodactyl?" asked the shaggy-haired teenager who was dating Lane. "Sweet!" he enthused, and wandered off, presumably to spread the good news.
"Would someone please pay attention to the fact that I am bleeding to death from my hand?" Taylor asked, wrapping part of the tablecloth around his wound, and glared at everybody.
It was remarkable that Alex still hadn't developed a migraine yet at this point. Maybe the town was growing on her. It was a frightening thought. "It's a surface wound, Taylor," she said, and moved her chair over so she could clean it with hydrogen peroxide. "I assure you, you will not bleed to death from it."
She rummaged through the first aid kit and extracted a pumpkin-shaped Band-Aid leftover from Halloween. Slapping it onto Taylor's hand, she said, "There you go."
"But what about the bird flu?" Taylor persisted.
"You're not going to get the bird flu, Taylor," Alex said.
"How do you know there isn't the remotest possibility that I will get the bird flu?"
"I don't," Alex said shortly, "but I can tell you, Taylor, that there is a fairly good chance you will not get the bird flu."
"That's because it's not a bird," Bootsy pointed out.
Alex jerked her thumb towards the direction of the parade and Lorelai quickly left with Bootsy and Kirk in tow.
Alone, Alex informed Taylor that the bird flu, which he did not have, nor will ever have, was not contracted through open wounds. It was, in fact, an airborne disease, a fact Alex immediately regretted telling him, because Taylor began freaking out about how he'd been holding the turkey for at least half an hour before.
"We breathed the same air," he said.
"You weren't on an airplane," Alex reassured him. "You should be fine."
"What if I'm not, Claire? Have you ever thought about that?"
Alex really hadn't. For one thing, the grass on their lawns would never be the same height again, which was an exhilarating thought. It would be like the French revolution all over again.
"I'm not going to live forever, you know, and this town counts on me. If anything happens to me, bird flu or some other sort of disease, or I get hit by one of those scooters children are riding all over the place these days --- there should be a law against that --- what's going to happen to Stars Hollow?"
Alex highly suspected a giant marble statue of Taylor in the town square would somehow be involved, in addition to a week-long memorial service, orchestrated by Taylor himself from beyond the grave.
"Claire, I want you to be Stars Hollow's Honorary Assistant Town Selectman."
Alex had always dreamed of going into politics, but becoming Stars Hollow's Honorary Assistant was not exactly what she'd had in mind. It was nothing like what she'd had in mind, and she fervently tried to decline the offer, especially when Taylor started comparing himself to JFK and her to Lyndon B. Johnson.
"First of all, you're not dead, Taylor," Alex said, "and second, I've only been living here for two months. Shouldn't you find someone who's more qualified?"
"You're the only person who knows the town rules and by-laws by heart," he said, and it was true: Alex had memorized them several weeks ago, when Taylor was harassing her about something minor and idiotic and she'd gone through the town codes to find a loophole so that he would back the hell off. "You're the only person I've ever known to show such an interest in the well-being of this town."
Alex didn't even know how to respond to that.
"Please, Claire. You're the only one I could trust. Won't you take into consideration the last pleas of a dying man? My goodness, HAVE YOU NO HEART?"
*
The parade was almost over when Lorelai returned to where Alex was.
"Where's Taylor?" she asked.
"Sent him home with some animal tranquilizers I got from the vet," Alex said.
Lorelai broke into a grin that reached all the way to China. "I like it when you try to be funny."
"Who says I'm trying to be funny? By the way," she added stoically, "I'm Stars Hollow's Honorary Assistant Town Selectman."
Hearing the words come out of her own mouth, it occurred to Alex for the first time that she might consider Stars Hollow second-best to her former life, but she was not second-best to them. She was their first choice, they actually wanted her here, and the thought of it made her simultaneously flattered and fearful.
A moment passed before Lorelai said, "You're never going to leave this town now."
Alex was doomed.
*
Dinner was a noisy affair, as most things were when it came to Lorelai. The turkey was perfect, and as Lorelai had promised, there were three kinds of pie. Patty polished off a bottle of wine and regaled the crowd with stories of her cage-dancing days, which probably only lasted a week, but sounded much longer.
It was nice. It wasn't quite home, but it was nice.
Alex woke in the middle of the night, ravenous. She had no idea how, since she'd eaten her own weight in turkey and sweet potatoes a couple of hours earlier. Hammond would attribute her appetite to the fine country air, but Alex suspected that the culprit was Lorelai's contagious eating habits.
Lorelai was already in the kitchen when she got there, poking at the last piece of pumpkin pie with disinterest. "Saved you the blueberry, since you don't like pumpkin," she said, as if she'd known Alex would come.
In the orange glow of the light from the hallway, Alex could see dirty dishes piled up by the sink, candy wrappers and stray popcorn and shredded napkins littering the floor of the living room. The house looked like a fairground after the carnival was over.
She sat down, and they ate in silence, periodically interrupted by the crickets outside, until Lorelai finally set down her fork and said, "I miss Rory."
"I know," said Alex, and went to take the ice cream out of the freezer. They would need it.
It's so fucking weird to write fic where those two are not yet fucking like speed-talking bunnies on crystal meth.
This is not an invitation for you to ask me to write fic where they fuck like speed-talking bunnies on crystal meth.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 06:15 am (UTC)really i just would like fic where they're fucking.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 06:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 08:45 am (UTC)you should absolutely write this from Lorelai's POV. she totally knows something is fishy with Claire, but doesn't seriously ask because she knows if she does Claire will leave, and she figures she will find out eventually, and that is better than never finding out.
you know what i need? a chronologically arranged list of all your alex/claire stuff.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 09:12 am (UTC)see, that would only work if Lorelai took, like, ten seconds away from thinking ONLY ABOUT HERSELF and caring about somebody else. which would never happen in canon. but this is crackverse, so you never know.
yeah, that doesn't work. some of my claire fic contradict each other.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 09:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 10:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 01:47 pm (UTC)Deny it all you want. You'll give in.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 05:06 pm (UTC)wcynic: vaginas smell bad
wcynic: that's one part of being a lesbian i don't like
wcynic: you have to really get your face IN there
See? SEE? I rest my case.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 01:15 am (UTC)Excellent fic. I'd love to know how Lorelai convinced Luke to cook twice though.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 01:16 am (UTC)I think people just do shit for Lorelai because she's Lorelai. Either that or she flashed her jugs at him.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 05:07 am (UTC)This makes me curious about what happened when they met for the First Time. I am slightly creeped out by the thought. I mean, Alex/Lorelai is a timeline of Before and After and After can't possibly have a beginning, because it's too crazy to even ponder.
...Right?
This is not an invitation for you to ask me to write fic where they fuck like speed-talking bunnies on crystal meth.
See, you can deny it all you want, but you know that someday this fic will hop into your brain and even if you hate smut, you'll have to write it. Because that's just how it goes. Free will is not involved.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 06:43 am (UTC)If you click on the ficlets tag, you might be able to find a post with a bunch of ficlets in the comments, and one of them details how Alex ended up living with Lorelai. I would go find it for you, but I am le tired!
You know, I have the same problem. I have many OTHER problems, but the one where I don't like to think of Alex without Lorelai or Lorelai without Alex persists longer and harder (dirty!) than the rest.
Okay, that was so not what you were talking about. You're just weird about time and space like my gf.
No. No, cracksprouts, no. It's not going to happen. I can't write smut. I just can't.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 10:31 pm (UTC)Hm. Well, maybe they could kiss like speed-talking bunnies on crystal meth?
...Hokay, never mind, weird image there.