Lorelai Gilmore is like a child (needcoffee) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-09-15 10:28:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, lorelai gilmore, merry brandybuck |
Who: Lorelai Gilmore and Merry Brandybuck (and NPC!Rory Gilmore)
What: Merry is crashing Movie Night at the Gilmores
When: Thursday night.
Where: Dragonfly Inn, moving to the Gilmore Residence
Ratings: PG. It's pretty tame
Status: Complete
It wasn't stalking. it didn't count as stalking unless you were crazy. Or so Merry was telling himself again and again. The trouble, he reassured himself, was that he was too sane, and so going beyond his usual routine seemed unreasonable. Yes, that was all it was. He most certainly was not stalking Lorelai Gilmore.
But that really didn't explain why he was currently driving circles around the Dragonfly Inn, hoping to catch sight of her. Then, he would park. And she would probably say something witty and he would laugh and claim he was just in the neighborhood and omigoodness he was stalking her. This totally counted as stalking! Merry really was losing his mind.
Lorelai was out on the Dragonfly's grounds, showing a bride-to-be and her mother where the upcoming ceremony was to be held, and supervising the decorations.
She was too busy dealing with the bridal histrionics to notice the crazy man circling the inn.
Merry rolled to a stop in a space not too far away from the inn. Somehow, it seemed crazier to drive in circles and park than drive in circles and go home. He stood by the car door for a little bit and then began strolling down the sidewalk, focusing all his efforts on looking casual. He was good at that from all the meetings he took at work. Act casual, and people usually believe you are.
He waved when he caught sight of Lorelai from a distance.
Lorelai looked up and waved at Merry when she spotted him and waved in frantic relief. "Oh, ladies, I'm so sorry, but I'm going to have to excuse myself," she explained as Merry approached. "That's a very important investor, a dignitary, actually, from Timbuktu," she rambled, knowing how this bride thought she trumped pretty much every aspect of Lorelai's job today. "And I'm afraid we have to meet about.. incense and tea and.. Peace in the middle east, excuse me!"
She broke away from the women to bow to Merry, then whispered "I hope you can fake a Timbuktu accent," to him.
"Oh, if you ladies need anything--and I mean anything!--I'm sure Michel will be ecstatic to help you!"
Already, Merry was filling up with the surreal giddiness that always seemed to accompany his time with Lorelai. He felt childlike as he bowed in suit, not missing a beat. "I can do a really bad British accent. Will that work?" he asked, face still to the ground.
Lorelai had no idea what a Timbuktu accent sounded like, so the women probably wouldn't either. "Sure, go with that."
It was patently ridiculous, and ultimately it didn't matter that much if the women bought it or not. They looked so confused that it was the perfect opportunity to run away.
It seemed like he would be the one saving Lorelai from her own version of a boardroom meeting. Merry dared to place a hand on her shoulder as he led her away. "Bride?" he asked.
Lorelai nodded. "Tomorrow's the big day. All the planning and decorating is done, basically now we're just keeping her from murdering anyone. They all go crazy, Merry, all of them." He probably couldn't imagine his cousin's sweet little elf girl losing her mind, but Lorelai could.
She would have been right. He couldn't picture that. And he hadn't gotten close enough to his own near-wedding to find out how crazy his bride could get.
"Well, I'm sure that when the time comes for Frodo and Merrill, you will do everything in your power to harness the crazy and turn it into something amazing." He blushed at the sound of his own compliment. Bad sign.
"I'll do my best. Hey, maybe I'll get one of those fancy superpowers by then!"
"Done for the day?" she asked.
Merry was a little distracted, so it took him a moment of thought before he realized what she meant by superpowers. "Oh geez, I don't even know what to say about that whole mess. I'm just glad it isn't happening to me." No, he was just dreaming about being a hobbit with an inferiority complex. "The most I ever get is sword. But yes, done for the day. Do you get any of those weird dreams?"
"A sword?" Lorelai raised an eyebrow. "That's pretty cool." She shrugged when he asked about dreams. "Not really. Mine are pretty normal. Had a nightmare the other night about the inn burning down, that was kinda freaky, but nope. Nothing exciting over here."
"Speaking of here, what brings you to this neck of the woods? I thought you'd be busy with all those Timbuktu politics to deal with."
Merry frowned. "This inn? You mean, you dream about the same place?"
As for her actual question, he sort of bypassed it. He didn't really want Lorelai to think too hard about why he'd driven all the way from Anaheim for no particular reason.
Lorelai shrugged. "Eh, I just have normal dreams. No superheroes or aliens or anything crazy." She almost sounded disappointed that she wasn't part of the Dream movement, or whatever people were calling it. She didn't have much to add when people got to talking about that stuff. "Maybe I need to watch more action movies before bed."
"Oh, yeah," Merry replied. "Is that your plan for tonight? Watching action movies and eating dream-inducing foods?"
"Depends on what counts as dream-inducing foods. It's not celery, is it?" Lorelai asked, wrinkling her nose. She shrugged. "Movies sound pretty fun, actually. Been a while since I've done a movie night."
"Roast beef... cheese..." Merry began to ramble a list. "Definitely not celery. It's been a while since I've seen a movie, period. Really. I can't remember the last thing I saw in the theater."
"Well, I don't know of a theater that lets you sneak in roast beef and cheese, so I vote we watch one on my couch." Lorelai said without skipping a beat.
Merry almost missed a step. He played it off as if he had briefly fallen behind her. "Uh, sure. Why not?" He could feel his pulse in his temple.
"You've met Rory, right? Graduation?" Lorelai didn't really bring dates home to meet her kid, but this was Merry. It was a friend thing, right?
The same question was bouncing around in his own head. Had Lorelai just asked him on a date? Was watching a movie on her couch really just watching a movie on her couch? Merry was pretty sure he'd seen a movie more recently than the last time he'd been on a date.
"Of course I remember Rory," he said, still hoping he at least sounded relaxed. "Will she be around tonight?" Code, maybe?
"Probably," Lorelai answered. "She's always up for movie night. I don't think she has any big tests coming up." Not that anything could keep Rory from studying, tests or no, but she tried to set aside Mom-time.
Okay, so it probably wasn't a date if the woman's daughter was going to be sitting with them. He could picture it already, with the two of them sharing the couch and him in a separate armchair. He wasn't relieved at all. His face fell, but he tried to hide it. "Yes, she's a studious one, wasn't she? I remember now."
Lorelai was actively trying to avoid figuring out how he felt about this. Merry was a nice guy, and dating him wouldn't be a bad thing... But they should establish if that's what they were doing.
"Unless you'd rather go to a movie theater?" she asked.
He faltered in his step again. My, this was a long walk they were taking. Where were they headed, exactly.
But she was on to him. The things going through his mind were not as secret as Merry believed. That meant it was time to deny everything and throw her off the scent. "No, a movie at home is fine. I'm not even sure what's playing anyway. We'd probably get there and be forced to watch.... Twilight. Or something."
Clearly they were walking to Timbuktu!
Lorelai laughed. "But I like my men sparkly." She was off her game, a bit. This was awkward. "I'll shoot Rory a text to rent something from the video store while we grab food."
Now, Merry did feel a little relieved. Crisis averted. Sort of, anyway. "Should I leave my car here, then? Or meet you there?"
Lorelai shrugged. "Either way. You can follow me there if you want."
Merry and Lorelai in a grocery store was a bit frightening. They were buying for one night, and the shopping cart was full. Lorelai had covered the junk food portion: Twizzlers, Whoppers, chocolate-covered popcorn, and other horrible foods.
Once they made it back to Lorelai's house, she grabbed several grocery bags and let Merry inside.
Merry was no fan of health food himself, though Lorelai was going to bit overboard. He added a few salty things to the mix: roasted peanuts, Pringles, mushroom poppers he could toss in the oven. Hopefully she had an oven.
Lorelai led Merry back to her kitchen where there was, in fact, an oven. She left him to that—not wanting to burn the house down—and went into the living room to greet Rory and see what movie she’d picked out. She’d told her ‘action’, and Rory, being an overachiever, picked The Expendables.
He had only met Rory once before, but the way her mother spoke about her Merry was easily able to converse on a wide array of talking points. If fact, chatting with her put Merry at ease for the first time all evening. She had a calming aura about her. She was a good foil for her mother's exciting if a bit manic energy.
But that crazy energy was what Merry found so attractive about Lorelai. Around her, he felt alive. He hadn't realized how long he'd felt the opposite.
“So.. how is this different from every Thursday night?” Rory asked her mother. Obviously they had an extra guest, but she didn’t quite follow how massive amounts of junkfood and movies was supposed to change their dreams. Wasn’t there supposed to be a change in routine?
“That’s...a good point,” Lorelai said. The original intent of this evening had gotten lost a bit. “Well.. the mushrooms are new! And what about spicy foods? Maybe we could eat the mushrooms with hot sauce?”
Merry was back in the kitchen now, pulling his mushrooms from the oven. "Don't you dare ruin these with nasty Tabasco."
“How am I supposed to get crazy dreams?” Lorelai called, throwing her hands in the air. “What do we do, put Tabasco on the Twizzlers?” Rory made a face that was essentially the only response someone could have to the idea of Tabasco-covered Twizzlers.
“Just don’t put any on mine, then,” Merry said, entering the living room with a plate of stuffed mushroom caps. For something that had come out of a box, they didn’t look too bad. He popped one into his mouth before sitting down. In a separate armchair. Not on the sofa.
Rory and Lorelai looked a little unsure. “Try one,” Rory told Lorelai.
“No, you try one,” Lorelai replied.
“Sookie stuffs gross things in other gross things, and they come out tasting good,” the teenager reasoned.
“Sookie’s a genius, and I’m pretty sure she uses fairy dust in her cooking. It looks slimy.” Lorelai didn’t have the most refined palate.
“He’s eating one!” They were talking about Merry like he wasn’t there, which was a bit rude. Finally, Rory took a mushroom and stuffed it into her mouth, Tabasco-free. She shrugged, not disgusted. They’d definitely had worse.
It was Lorelai’s turn now, and she pouted a bit, but took one and ate it. “Needs Tabasco,” she said, mouth full. It wasn’t really that bad, though. At least it had cheese.
Cheese made everything better. Merry smiled with closed lips and a full mouth and their mother-daughter banter. Clearly, they were better adjusted than his family had ever been. Not that he didn’t have a good relationship with his parents. It was just that some distance was necessary.
“So, what are we watching?” he asked, getting comfortable and continuing to feed himself. “What is this about?”
“Well, there’s that guy,” Lorelai said, pointing. “And he’s got a bunch of muscles, and he’s all ‘Grrr!’ to that other guy there with all the muscles. And then they got a bunch of guns and there were explosions and now you’re caught up!”
Merry choked on a mushroom cap laughing. Rory seemed to take her mother and stride, but he was thoroughly amused. What style, Lorelai had! Such a flair for life! He spent his day behind a desk, getting fat and cranky. He could recall it all so clearly now, the hours they had spent over coffee, giggling about their classes like they were in grade school, rather than business school. How had he relinquished those times together so easily?
Lorelai reached for the box of Raisinets. “‘I’m Big McHugeLarge,” Lorelai said, voicing one of the characters.
“Hi, Big,” Rory said, playing another of the action stars. “I’m Gristle McThornbody and this is my friend Rip Steakface.”
“Come on, McThornbody! Let’s go blowup the space station.”
“But Big, I thought we were here to overthrow the evil dictator! Didn’t you see the script?” Apparently Rory had actually been paying attention to the movie.
“Nobody likes a reader, Steakface,” admonished Big McHugelarge.
Merry chuckled, trying to think of comments, but for once he was not quick enough. “I didn’t realized I was also going to be watching Mystery Science Theater,” he said, revealing a bit of secret nerdiness.
“Mom has trouble paying attention to things unless there are funny voices,” Rory told Merry.
“Hey!” Lorelai objected. “You didn’t complain back when I was teaching you to add. ‘I’m an odd number.’ ‘I’m an eeeeven number!’”
“Mom. Honors roll. I think I got it.”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” Merry said. “Those voices are going to stick in my head for a long time to come.” As well as a the pleasing sight of Lorelai performing them.
“That’s the idea! To help her learn. Probably why she’s on the honor roll now,” Lorelai said, nodding sagely.
“I’m sure you’re right, mom,” Rory said, humoring her mother. “Why, just the other day the headmaster asked me if 7 was odd or even.”
He could not remember the last time he had laughed so often and so freely. Rory could give it as good as she could take it. Time was flying by, though, unfortunately. Merry was having too much fun.
By the end of the movie, Lorelai and Rory were on the floor, munching snacks and creating their own ending.
"Okay, I'm going to clean up and head to bed," Rory said, going into the kitchen.
Maybe Merry ought to have felt like a third wheel, but he didn't. Well, perhaps just a little bit. But that was how he typically felt about himself. He was just now realizing how sad that was.
"Goodnight, Rory," he said, as she left the room. He stood up and stretched. "It's probably time for me to head out, too."
Lorelai would leave most of the cleanup for tomorrow, but she did twist-tie a few bags of things she didn’t want to go stale. “Hey, I’m glad you came.” It could’ve been a lot more awkward than it was, but it turned out to be pretty fun.
“Thanks for allowing me to invite myself,” he replied. His face was bright. “We should do it again. Maybe. Sometime.”
Lorelai smiled. “Yeah, that would be fun.” The implications and complications could wait for later. Right now, what she said was exactly what she meant. She’d like to see him again.
“Wish me exciting dreams,” Lorelai said, once they were at the door.