𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄 . . . 𝘈 𝘛𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘔𝘦𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘰 𝘙𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳
❝ If you have a problem with him or Luke, you have a problem with me. . . ❞

  CHARLIE GILMORE WAS not a stickler for following the rules. Especially when in comparison to her sister, but when one lined up Charlie and Jess; she was suddenly a goody-two-shoes.

  "Jess," Charlie sighed angrily, watching an innocent woman held her coffee cup up for a refill, only to be passed by Jess who was carrying the coffee pot. "You can't just not serve people."

  "Is that a dare?"

  "No, it's not a dare!"

  Lorelai Gilmore had to hide her amusement behind her coffee, ignoring Luke's glare for not paying attention to their business conversation. But Charlie was always the smart-mouth, she was the one pushing people's buttons and grinning as their temper grew-- and everyone could admit it was humorous to see Star Hollow's star rebel on the other end of the interaction.

  "7:45," Charlie announced, retrieving a battered Jansport from behind the counter.

  "So?" Luke grumbled, looking between the teens.

  "Hey, if you say we shouldn't go to school, who are we to argue—?"

  "A valiant attempt," Lorelai smiled, "Have a good day!"

  "You too," Charlie sighed, slightly discouraged, "Jess."  

  "Yeah, yeah, I know," He mumbled, quickly shoving two donuts into a to-go bag before filling a styrofoam cup with coffee, "C'mon, we have things to do."

  Everything Charlie had done suddenly seemed like small potatoes when Jess showed her his glorious prank. 

  "When did you have time to do the outline?" She snickered, admiring the white tape outlining a faux body, and yellow police tape surrounding the front of Doose's.

  "Last night," He shrugged. "Your town has a shockingly low-security system."

  "We don't have any security systems, unless you count Taylor. And, I'll admit, it's a nice prank, but it's kind of boring since no one's seen it yet."

  "Have patience," Jess pointed, lazily draping an arm around her shoulders, "Once we're out of school, everyone's gonna be goin' nuts."

  Charlie's face melted into shock, which made Jess's heart skip a beat in panic. Had he done too much? The skin that brushed against the back of her cotton t-shirt erupted in goose-bumps at the small notion that he'd overstepped entirely.

  "What?"

  "You just suggested that we go to school." Jess visibly relaxed as her face lit up, "No one had to nag you or ask you, you just suggested it! Wow, maybe I am a good influence."

  "I hate to be the one to break this to you, Connecticut," Jess laughed out, "But you're not a good influence."

  "I'm a great influence!"

  "You got me high my second week here."

  "Oh, bite me."

  Jess laughed as Charlie took off towards the high school, catching up to her easily. She hesitated before walking through the doors, as she'd been doing since the Emma incident, but Jess only hoped his juvenile prank had done the one thing it was meant to.

  That, maybe, Charlie would be too busy wondering how Taylor would react and what Rory would say, that she wouldn't even have time to think about Liam.

  Which seemed to work until they actually entered the building, and right in front of her locker like an annoying lawn decoration were the people in question.

  "Charls—"

  "I can't do this today, okay?"

  "Charlie," Liam sighed, making the girl falter. It was easy to be mad at Emma. Charlie could block her out and ignore her texts— they fought about little things and the Gilmore girl had the routine down.

  But Charlie had never not talked to Liam. She'd never ignored him or steered clear; he was the constant.

  "Nobody meant to hurt you."

  "But, you did."

  "I know," Liam almost grimaced, "I can't. . . express how sorry I am."

  "Yeah, there's not a lot goin' up in there, is there?"

  Liam glared harshly at Jess, who stood behind Charlie with a small smirk.

  "You're not her bodyguard, Mariano."

  "Hey, I'm bein' a better friend than either of you."

  "We've known Charlie since Kindergarten," Emma snapped, "You can't swoop in and act like some savior—"

  "Never said that—"

  "The point is," Liam cut off, sighing tiredly, "I'm really sorry, Charlie. I'm sorry for everything. I didn't lie when I said you're my best friend. And I don't want to lose you because I made a mistake."

  Emma winced, but neither Charlie nor Liam saw that.

  "I never said I was going anywhere," Charlie mumbled to the tile floor, "I was just. . . really. . . really hurt."

  "C'mere, Charls."

  It seemed their added company could agree on one thing; neither of them quite liked how tightly Liam was holding onto Charlie. Her face was buried in his chest and his arms easily wrapped around her shoulders, tucking her chestnut hair to the back of her Belle and Sebastian t-shirt, and they looked almost right. Like, that was the way they were meant to be.

  Together. In every sense.

  "Can I get my stuff from my locker now?" Charlie asked, laughing quietly, "We have to get to homeroom."

  "Only 'cause you asked so nicely."

↬

  Jess and Charlie stood in the town square, the former leaning against a light pole, watching the prank unfold before their very eyes. He'd been quieter than normal throughout the day, but against what Charlie thought, Jess was still waiting for her after her last period. 

  She chalked this up to his permanent teenage angst. The rebel engraved in his bones. Jess had a bad attitude; so what? He still bought her a soda at lunch and waited for her between classes, he still reluctantly gave her a fist-bump when Taylor began panicking over the faux crime scene, so what did it matter?

  Once Rory set eyes on the duo, they decided to leave the scene. Charlie was silently hoping her sister would leave the whole thing alone, but then again, it was Rory Gilmore.

  "How was school?"

  "Oh, you know, the American school system is corrupt as ever, and the social hierarchy is somewhere I do not excel."

  Luke stared blanky at Charlie, who shrugged before grabbing two plates Cesar announced were ready.

  The bell above the familiar door of Luke's rang, announcing new customers, but when Charlie set eyes on the group, joy overtook work and she rushed to the women.

  "Mia!"

  "Charlotte!" The woman held her arms open, allowing Charlie to pull her into a tight hug, "You're working, oh when did you grow up?"

  "Sometime between 8th grade and today," Charlie smiled, pulling away.

  "You aren't overworked are you?" Her eyes flicked to Luke who was surprisingly grinning.

  "Nah, Luke's a pretty cool boss."

  "Mia, hey." Luke finally brought the woman in for a hug.

  "Nice to see you, Lucas." Mia greeted happily.

  "You're the only person in the world who can call me that, Mia."

  "I know this."

  "I call you that," Charlie frowned lightly at the man, but he flashed her a small smile.

  "You're an exception," Luke disregarded, "I'm saying it for others who plan to try it later."

  "Whatever, Lucas." Lorelai smiled at the two.

  "Mia, you know anything about toasters?"

  "Not a damn thing."

  "Well then sit down and let me get you some coffee." The three girls sat down as Luke continued working on his toaster, Charlie starting the coffee before returning to the entertainment of Luke fighting with the object.

  "You're making that worse," Jess noted, leaning on the counter beside Charlie who had pulled herself onto it.

  "Big help. Thanks." Luke grumbled, "Off the counter." 

  Charlie reluctantly slid off the counter with a disgruntled expression, which pulled a small smile out of Jess.

  "Luke, that's your nephew?" Mia called out, making Jess earn an elbow in his ribs for the unintended eye-roll that Charlie saw quite clearly. The girl put on a smile as she pulled down three mugs and was tailed by Luke with a coffee pot.

  "It's Liz's kid. Jess, this is Mia." Luke began filling the mugs as Charlie stood back next to Jess, "She owns the Independence Inn."

  "Huh." Jess poked his cheek with his tongue.

  "That's 'hello nice to meet you' in slacker." 

  Charlie couldn't help but smile at the two— they were so similar, and it was obvious to everyone. Except them.

  "You don't need me down here, do you?" Jess walked away before Luke could say anything, which made a pit of irritation bubble in Charlie's stomach. She chewed at her cheek, staring at the curtain that was settling from his abrupt exit.

  "Go," Mia smiled, watching the girl quickly retreat upstairs.

  Charlie lightly knocked on the door. 

  "Go away, nobody's home."

  "Would someone be home if it was me?" The brunette's voice came out hopeful, and the door was opened within seconds. "Would you look at that."

  "Just get in here," Jess sighed, Charlie rolling her eyes with a smile before entering the apartment.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a stack of familiar papers, "Is that—"

  "No." Jess quickly hid the papers between stacks of books.

  "That's—"

  "No, it's not." 

  Charlie grinned as she managed to get past the boy and pull out the papers, the worksheets she had been given that needed to be done for extra credit. The worksheets Jess had almost completed by himself.

  "You did them." Charlie flicked through the pages of his somewhat neat handwriting, "Why?"

  "I was bored." Jess sunk into the couch, not daring to look at Charlie who joined him, pulling her legs under herself and watched him with an expectant expression, "Stop lookin' at me like that."

  "You did a bunch of worksheets because you were bored?" Jess simply nodded as Charlie set them back down, "Thank you."

  "I didn't do it for you," Jess denied once again, but Charlie just shrugged, standing.

  "Whatever you say, Mariano." She walked to the door, looking back only briefly to see Jess watching her leave.

↬

  "We're late."

  "We're not late."

  Charlie walked beside Mia as they, Lorelai, and Rory headed to the town meeting. Rory rambled on about Taylor's empty threats of consequences. They caught Luke locking up the diner, which was easy reassurance that they were in fact not late, even two minutes early.

  But when they walked into the building, they were all shocked to see a meeting already in place.

  "I think we're late," Mia laughed quietly.

  "What's going on here?"

  "Uh, nothing." Taylor weakly denied to Luke, though it didn't take long for him to come clean. "If you must know, there was a special issue that the business community had to deal with first, so we decided to start early."

  "I'm in the business community and I wasn't told about it," Luke fired back. "Taylor?"

  "Alright fine! You weren't invited, Luke."

  "And why is that?"

  "You weren't invited because we are dealing with the Jess situation." As soon as his name fell from Taylor's mouth, Charlie dropped the amused look on her face.

  "What Jess situation?"

  "Damn it, Taylor!" 

  Lorelai dragged Rory to sit, leaving Charlie and Luke who were obviously too uneasy to join them.

  "Luke, honey, calm down," Patty tried to diffuse the situation.

  "After all, this is all your doing." Charlie's jaw went slack at Taylor's words, "If you hadn't so cavalierly dismissed the issue, we wouldn't have had to do this! I lost business because of what your hooligan nephew did."

  "How was business lost, Taylor? You had to open later that day, your customers just came back later."

  "Not so." Taylor went on about how some a woman went to Woodbury to buy lettuce, Luke slapped a $5 on the podium but Taylor wasn't having it. "This goes well beyond a head of lettuce, young man. The charges against your nephew are numerous. He stole the save the bridge money—"

  "He gave that back." Charlie defended with a glare.

  "He stole a gnome from Babette's garden—"

  "Pierpon was returned," Luke interrupted as well.

  "He hooted at one of my dance classes," Patty added.

  "He took a garden hose from my yard."

  "My son said he set off the fire alarms at school last week."

  "I heard he controls the weather and wrote the screenplay to 'Glitter'," Lorelai called from the back row.

  Bootsy then went on about Luke more than Jess, which only made Charlie grow increasingly frustrated.

  "Boys, please!" Taylor ended the argument, "The bottom line here is, there is a consensus among townspeople who are in agreement that Stars Hollow was a better place before Jess got here!"

  "So, what, you wanna kick him out?" All eyes snapped to the small girl fuming in the back of the room, even Taylor faltered under her glare. "He hasn't even done anything wrong, and when it is wrong it gets fixed. How Luke handles Jess is no one's business but theirs."

  "But it's become a town problem—"

  "I'm a problem too!" Charlie cut the man off, humorlessly laughing, "I always have been! When I was 10 I kept everyone up because I decided to sing 'Kids in America' in the gazebo at 1 am. When I was 14 I took a pack of gum from the market, and I do stupid things every day, but no one's kicked me out of town!" Everyone was shocked at her outburst. "I'm with Jess all the time, so chances are if he did something you don't like, I was there. If you have a problem with him or Luke, you have a problem with me— and if you want to get rid of Jess, well, then you want to get rid of me, too!"

  She stormed out of the building, not letting anyone say a single word.

  "Pea?" Luke sat on the steps to the diner beside Charlie who had her head in her hands, he had blown up as well, but when he saw the teen cradling her head, all his anger dissipated. "Are you alright?"

  "I hate this town."

  "You don't mean that—"

  "Yes, I do!" Charlie looked at the man, her eyes shining with unshed tears, "Do you realize how similar I am to Jess? I used to never go to school, steal things, be an overall nuisance— they've probably had a meeting about me before."

  "No they haven't," Luke sighed, "And you aren't like that anymore."

  "Neither is Jess," Charlie mumbled, "I know nobody sees it, he's stupid and doesn't show the good side to anyone. But he really is a good guy." Her eyes focused on the town in front of her, "He's there for me when nobody else is and he's funny and he's. . . he's just a really good friend, okay? I don't know what I'd do without him."

  "Sounds like more than a friend to me." Luke couldn't help it when the corners of his lips twitched up.

  Charlie was speechless so she settled for a glare, "The point is Jess is a good person. He doesn't want to be here, sent away from his home, but being angry doesn't make him a bad guy."

  The two sat in silence, both still radiating anger from the town meeting, but Luke's was dissipating due to Charlie's recent words. "Do you want a burger?"

  "Do you really have to ask?"

( AUTHOR'S NOTE. )
okay so we don't TOTALLY
hate liam and emma, right?
idk, I HATE THEM LESS
maybe that's me, but
also, Luke just KNOWING
that Charlie likes Jess,
BEFORE SHE EVEN KNOWS,
it just be like that sometimes.