Each one of these stands alone. Each has warnings and a rating.
Title: Poetry at Three in the Morning
Disclaimer: Not my characters. Just for fun.
Warnings: pretty much total AU
Pairings: implied Tristan/Rory, Dean/Rory, Tristan/Dean
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 1250
Point of view: third
Tristan sometimes wonders how he is. How they are. If they got their happy ending or faded away like smoke in the night.
He heard rumors but nothing concrete, and he honestly didn't care enough to ferret out the information. Really. He was over them a long time ago.
o0o
Sometimes he walks down the streets of LA—where he moved finally, escaping New England and all its false promises—and sees a tall guy with dark hair or a lithe brunette, and for an instant he imagines it's them.
His breath catches and his heart pounds—the ending had been so painful and he regrets it so much now. He feels shame, even after he knows it isn't them.
o0o
He was such a bastard, back in high school. Sure of his future, his power, his charisma. Sure that he could get anything he wanted.
And from the moment he laid eyes on Rory, he wanted her. Wanted to hold her, to read to her, to—own her. Own her like his father owned his mother, and yet not, because his mother wasn't happy, and never had been.
He really wanted Rory to be happy, and a part of him honestly thought he could buy her happiness.
And then, at the dance—he met Dean. Dean who wasn't afraid of him. Dean who actually fought him. Dean who stood up and dished back just as hard as Tristan gave.
Dean who said he could kill him, and would—Dean who Rory adored.
Dean who Tristan knew he could never equal, and who he hated as much as he loved.
Dean who he wanted to own, to dominate—Dean who he wanted to look at him like he looked at Rory, and who he knew never would.
o0o
He sits in his apartment a lot, alone. Women and men come and go, none staying for long.
Tristan's always had commitment issues.
He drinks scotch and coffee, eats nachos and pancakes. He sleeps in spurts, never through the night. He floats from one job to the next, and works on a novel he figures'll never get published.
This is, quite certainly, the life he never dreamed of, all those years ago.
o0o
And he can't say he's happy, because he's not. He can't say he doesn't regret, because he does. With every breath, he regrets. He regrets so hard his body should shatter, or he should drown on the inside—because men don't cry. They don't.
He never has. He never will. He never weeps on the outside, but he sobs inside, he sobs oceans.
His father would scoff, would mock, would rant. His father should have disinherited him long ago.
Tristan's never been the son he wanted.
o0o
He watches the sun rise at least twice a week for five years. Not a one is ever the same. Like snowflakes, like fingerprints—each completely unique.
No one at Chilton would have thought him a poet, and it honestly isn't bragging if he says that he is.
Maybe if he'd written a poem for Rory she'd have given him a chance.
He throws back a scotch and almost chokes as he starts laughing at the thought of writing a poem for Dean.
o0o
Maybe poetry would have been the way to go. Maybe a sonnet, Shakespearian or Spenserian—girls like that, right? Poems—why didn't he think of that, back then?
He writes a character, Beatrice Lorelai Jameson into his novel—she'll be one of the few to survive until the end. And he also puts in a guy, the villain, Samuel Gregory Dean—he'll eventually turn good, of course, like all the cool villains do. He'll win the heart of Rory—the Rory of the book—and they'll live happily ever after.
Tristan can't finish the book. He doesn't know where to go after they meet for the first time.
o0o
Mom sends birthday cards and then postcards as she travels the world. She finally worked up the guts to leave Dad, and Tristan is glad for her. She isn't as broken as he thought, and traveling brings back sparkle to her eyes. He can tell that from the pictures—in real life, he might burn in her iridescent glow.
She always reminded him of butterfly in a glass cage, pinned by poison and time. He's glad she awakened from that slumber, spread her fragile wings, and finally soared.
He chuckles, doing the dishes, imagining his mother as an insect. Not only weird, her face on that body, but not even that poetic.
o0o
Dad calls once. Demands Tristan come home. Demands an apology for all the stupid shit Tristan did, all the mistakes.
Tristan scoffs into the phone, says, "I'll apologize the day you do," and slams down the phone.
He feels vindicated. Powerful. And then gets the email from Mom that Dad just disinherited him. It was a month later that Mom finally left.
o0o
So he gives Sam—the character from his novel—a fucked-up family life. Abusive dad—not that Dad ever hit him with fists or belts, or anything physical, just words—and a broken mother.
And he gives Rory a mom who ran and a dad who did his best but failed.
And he decides this story won't get a happy ending, because he's still crying inside and nothing will ever make him stop.
o0o
And poetry is overrated, anyway. It wouldn't have worked on Rory—real Rory—because… he just knows it wouldn't have. Not from him.
Maybe Dean could have pulled it off, the stupid bastard. Dean seemed to always do the right thing—until the whatever it was that split them up.
Tristan can't imagine Rory without Dean or Dean without Rory.
He sits down and writes another chapter, visualizing that dance, and Sam finally turns good.
o0o
He's written his best poetry at night. Drunk almost to the merciful blackness, words come without hardship, flow as from a fountain, and he pens them so messily he almost can't read it the next morning.
He's written whole books of verse on those years, painful and far away, now. Bitter, full of regret, and even hope, few and far between. Whole sonnets just about Rory, about Dean—and he knows they didn't know each other. He knows he has only imaginings, images, half-formed ideas—but he's a writer. He lives in the imagination.
And he finishes the book with a flourish, and the heroine, he decides, is going to die, while the villain turned hero lives to a ripe old age and hates himself forever.
o0o
Sometimes he walks down the streets of LA—where he moved finally, escaping New England and all its' false promises—and sees a tall guy with dark hair or a lithe brunette, and for an instant he imagines it's them.
His breath catches and his heart pounds—the ending had been so painful and he regrets it so much now. He feels shame, even after he knows it isn't them.
God, he was such a moron—he really should call them up, apologize. He wonders if they'd even speak to him.
o0o
Poetry at three in the morning is the best kind, he decides, and turns another page.