#javajunkie/lambcuddles

[wordshakerofgallifrey]

that’s right, ya girl’s back with more Stars Hollows au! this is part of a whole  fic, titled “Five Times Jack Kelly Was There For Lucy Pulitzer”, but it’s cute and I haven’t shared much lately, so... enjoy!

javajunkie/lambcuddles, 1139 words.

The diner was bustling when the phone rang and Jack just barely managed to take the phone off the hook and pass off a plate to Romeo at the same time without catastrophic results. “Jack’s.” “Do you deliver?” was the ragged reply. “Do—what?” Jack asked, the question freezing him in his process. The voice on the line huffed. “Deliver. You know, you make the food, drive it to the house in thirty minutes or less or it’s free—" “Katherine?” There was only one person in town he knew that talked that way and that fast. “Yeah. So. Do you?” “Do what?” He could practically hear her roll her eyes. “Voodoo. Deliver food, Bowie.” Jack huffed, leaning against the counter by the register. “Don’t ya got coffee at home? If ya can’t make it in, just drink ya own. Ruin your nerve system far ‘way from here—" “It’s for Lucy. She’s sick.” Scuffing his toe against the tile floor was as close as Jack could get to an apology, even as guilt twisted in his stomach. “Oh. Uh... she okay?” “She’ll be fine.” Katherine was going for overly-breezy, he could tell, but he still heard the worry. “She went to Annie’s birthday party the other day and one of the kids had chicken pox and Lucy’s never had the chicken pox so now she’s red and itchy and irritable and wants mashed potatoes for some reason.” “Mashed potatoes?” Jack asked, pulling his receipt pad from his belt and writing it down. “Yeah, and I tried asking if she wanted Charlie’s mashed potatoes instead but she wants yours. Like. She was adamant that it has to be Jack’s. What do you even put in your mashed potatoes?” “Uh. Potatoes?” It came out like a question as he twisted to hand Romeo the order. “Well they better be magic potatoes, mister, because she’s going on two days with the chicken pox so what she wants, she gets. Got it?” Jack huffed. “It’ll be there in thirty minutes.” “Or it’s free?” Jack hung up. “Hey, Romeo, add a cherry Coke to that order, to-go, alright?” “Got it!” Fifteen minutes later, Jack was pulling into the Pulitzer driveway. He cut the engine, reaching for the bag and drink carrier that held Lucy’s Coke and a coffee he’d added as barely an after-thought. Trudging up to the front door, Jack frowned at the wobbly front step and the warp of the porch rail. He’d have to come back with his toolbox and try and fix those. Be stupid if Lucy got over the chicken pox just to take a header into the front yard. Carefully avoiding both, Jack made it to the front door and knocked. After a moment, the lock flipped and Katherine opened the door, on the phone, and waved him in without saying anything.

"Alright..." he mumbled. He followed her into the kitchen, catching a glimpse of Lucy on the couch, bundled in a blanket nest and watching something black and white on the TV.

"Look, Darcy," Katherine was still speaking on the phone as she whirled around the kitchen, unearthing a bowl and spoon from somewhere, setting them on the table. "I've never asked anything from you ever, and I'm not even asking anything of you now! Lucy's asking for you—your daughter is asking that you come visit her because she's sick and miserable and for some unfathomable reason wants mashed potatoes and her father. Now I can only cover half of that, are you going to come through on the other half?"

Jack felt awkward, just standing in her kitchen as she breezed around him, looking for something else and snapping at—Darcy? Lucy's dad?—so he unpacked the mashed potatoes from the Jack's bag and spooning some into the bowl.

"California? When did California happen? You were just in Boston." Katherine pushed her bangs back impatiently as she listened to the other line. "Well, sorry, Darcy, we haven't heard from you in two years, it's best to assume everything's the same."

Ducking around Hurricane Katherine, Jack carried the bowl of mashed potatoes and cherry Coke out to the living room where Lucy was, leaving the coffee on the table for Katherine to find. "Hey, uh. Ya mom said you ain't feelin' good," he said, dropping both on the coffee table in front of her. "So I brought'cha, uh, mashed potatoes an' a Coke."

Lucy's gaze shifted away from the TV to the table, her eyes lighting up. "Ooh, thanks Jack!" she squealed, reaching for the bowl and stopping short, pouting at her hands, hidden by mismatched oven mitts.

"Uhm, what—?"

She lifted her hands so the chicken and the lamb oven mitts were in his face and he could see they were duct taped around her wrists. "Mommy said I couldn't scratch at the pox, so she put these on, but now I can't eat. Can you take them off?" she pleaded.

"Uh..." It was basically impossible for anyone to say no to Lucy when she turned those big brown eyes on them, and Jack felt himself cave. What harm could it do? It wasn't like she could eat with the mitts on her. "Yeah, 'course I can."

Katherine blew into the living room, sans phone and holding the takeaway coffee cup as he was unwrapping the duct tape from the first oven mitt. She gasped dramatically, dropping onto the couch next to Lucy. "I leave for five minutes and the gloves come off, is that how it is? And roping Jack in on this? Shameless, Lucille, just shameless," she teased, ruffling her hair.

Lucy seemed to appear at least somewhat guilty, even as she defended herself. "But I need to eat, Mommy!"

"Getting men to do your work and prioritizing hunger? You are my daughter. Gimme the chicken, sweets." Picking up Lucy's other hand, Katherine ripped off the duct tape.

Jack rubbed his palms against his jeans a moment before clearing his throat. "So, uh, I brought enough so if she wants more f'r dinner, an' if she wants somethin' other'n potatoes—"

"I know who to call," Katherine finished, smiling warmly over Lucy's head at him. Whatever conversation she'd been having with Lucy's dad, she seemed to have moved on from it. "Thanks for the food, and the coffee—oh! How much do I owe you?" she asked, searching around the couch. "Let me just find my purse..."

He waved a hand, already moving towards the front door. "Oh, no, s'fine. I'll just... add it to ya tab at the diner. Pay me when ya can."

"Are you sure?" she asked, looking a little worried.

Jack nodded. "All good."

Katherine smiled at him again. "Thanks, Jack. Sweets," she tapped Lucy's head. "What do you say to Jack?"

"Thanks Jack!" Lucy chirped, twisting around to grin at him.

[wordshakerofgallifrey]

More JavaJunkie/Lambcuddles (say it five times fast, it’s fun) though technically Jack’s not in it much... anyways, another short one!! Maybe they’ll get longer if I ever have time. ever.

She and Lucy approached the corner where Jack’s door was, and Katherine stopped, peering through the window.

Jack’s was completely the same, as was Jack himself, but there was something about him tonight...

“Hey, what do you think of Jack?” she asked.

Lucy took a bite of her sundae. “What do you mean?”

“I mean... I don’t know, do you think he’s cute?”

“No.” Lucy pointed her spoon at her. “You’re not doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“You can’t date Jack.”

“I’m—not...” Katherine sputtered. “Why not?”

“If you date Jack, you’ll break up, and then we can’t eat at Jack’s, and then we’ll starve.”

Katherine scoffed, looping her arm through her daughter’s. “You have a lot of faith in me,” she said as they continued down the sidewalk.

“Ooh! Date Al, his food’s terrible.”

“Al of Al’s Pancake World? That’s your opinion of me?”