Title: Slipping Under The Surface
Chapter: 10--For You I Will
Rating: M
Disclaimer: I don't own anything buy my laptop, and trust me, you don't want this laptop…
Description: Sequel to Untouched… Another Trory… It starts out M because Untouched was M…
AN: You guys have been so good about not bugging me for updates… maybe it's because you have given up on me or have stopped reading, but I like to think you're just generally good to me with the no pressure thing and accepting updates as I can get to them. Anyhow, another one is finally done, and I hope you all enjoy…
His options were limited.
You wouldn't know it to look at him. Everything he owned was of the best quality, newest technology, and latest version to exist; from cars that weren't available to the general public to sheets with thread counts so high they resembled SAT scores. He'd been bred to expect the best; of his possessions, of those he surrounded himself with, and of himself. He'd been given every advantage to excel to those means—considered its own reward and punished when he fell short.
Having the finest the world had to offer sounded like most people's dream come true. Most people wouldn't consider that constricting. Most people didn't see him like she did.
Summer had been in full swing for two weeks. She had fallen into her routine, going to class in the morning, taking the bus back to Stars Hollow, and working either at the bookstore or the Inn for a few hours, then heading home to shower before he came over.
He hadn't missed a night.
At seven on the dot his car would pull up, displacing a certain amount of gravel in their driveway, and his long legs would swing out. His arm would come up to the roof, pulling his lean body out, as if he were too tired to push up with his legs. He'd arch his back in a stretch, let out a long breath—as if he'd been holding it since he got in the car—and look up at the house.
She liked to watch this little ritual of his. She was at the door, holding it wide open, in anticipation of his looking up to see her waiting. That's when his face broke from the remains of the day, and he'd smile.
He'd been quieter, tonight, than he normally was. He was starting to look more comfortable in her kitchen, leaning against the counter and stopping Lorelai from breaking the toaster when it wouldn't pop up the toaster pizzas and helping Rory talk her out of getting what she deemed fancier in her whims.
He'd also memorized the number to the pizza place and became on a first name basis with Joe, the delivery guy, when the toaster pizzas came out resembling carbon samples, not to mention his offer to replace the pair of socks he scorched when he unknowingly put the oven on preheat and she remembered too late where she'd left the socks she'd been looking for the last few months.
And still, he came.
It'd been weird, at first, she would be the first to admit. Her mother had developed the ability to keep one eye on him at all times, as if he might accomplish some act of sexual impropriety behind her back. He looked out of place slathering a piece of bread with peanut butter, as he was starving and claimed not to be able to wait for the pizza with everything on it they'd ordered to replace what was supposed to have turned out to be spaghetti and turned out to be over cooked mush with marinara.
She'd even offered to do it for him, feeling guilty at subjecting him to such sub par dining options after he'd offered to take her out to a real restaurant, but he let out a strangled laugh, kissed her cheek with sticky lips, and told her that he'd seen the genes she'd inherited and was wary to give her a knife. Pretending to be hurt, she held out in touching him for as long as she could, but in the end, she ended up where she always did—on the couch, with his head in her lap, watching some television show that Lorelai had added to his list of 'educational' experiences he'd missed out on. He dutifully watched and laughed at Dark Shadows, SOAP, and AbFab, holding out each night longer than Lorelai, who would retire when she reached the point of falling asleep sitting up, and he could finally reap his reward.
Rory still had trouble sometimes, understanding how in the world she became something he held so high.
They were relatively safe, tonight, with boxes upon boxes of Chinese food and Band of Brothers. Lorelai had acquiesced this once, letting him choose this first and auspicious time—saying that if she didn't enjoy what he brought it over, then the invitation would never be extended again. As if he didn't realize it was a test.
Well into the second hour, with over half of the egg rolls consumed, the phone rang. Having seen the mini-series before, and noticing how both women were staring more at the screen than their chopsticks, he rolled up, leaving a cool contrast in the wake of the warm spot his head had created on her thigh, and moved to answer the phone.
"Gilmore residence," he said, still eating out of the box of fried rice he'd taken with him off of the coffee table.
"Where is Lorelai?" came the foreign demand. "I do not have time to explain why I need to talk to her, just get her from whatever heart-clogging experience she is having and put her on the phone!"
"Uh, just a sec," he frowned and put the phone on the side table next to their answering machine. "Lorelai?"
Her eyes snapped up to meet his. "But Ross is so about to get his!" she whined.
"Mom, he's only Ross on Friends," Rory pointed out.
"Like you've not been expecting him to mention that they're on a break, for like, the last two hours?" Lorelai challenged.
Rory giggled, and he moved back toward the couch. "It sounds like an emergency—some French dude about to lose his mind?"
She rolled her eyes and stood up. "That's just… Michel," she sighed and moved to answer the phone, groaning as she went. "Hello? Okay, slow down and back up. Why are you wearing alligator shoes?" she giggled. "Okay, okay, why are they all wet? Well, take them off."
Tristan eased back down on the couch, sliding down so that his head rested back on her thigh, and his legs hanging over the arm of the couch. She looked down at him as he did his best to get comfortable on a couch that didn't really accommodate him. She lifted up her leg just barely, so he could slide one arm around it like a pillow, finally relaxing against her.
She leaned up, trying not to squish his head as she grabbed the remote to pause the DVD, partly because she didn't want her mother to miss out on anything important and partially to overhear better. He turned up to look at her, and she just smiled and indicated to listen.
"Why didn't you say that in the first place? … Well, did you call Jim? You have to call Jim! I don't care that it's after hours, just call him at home. UGH! Fine, I'll be right there, and I'll call him on my way over. Yes, I understand. No, I will not pay you extra to do that. Fine. Yes, stand on a chair. Just give me ten minutes!"
Rory turned, and he sat back up halfway as Lorelai commenced grabbing her purse and keys. "What's wrong?"
"Uh, a pipe burst, Michel wants me to buy him a new line of clothes, as apparently nothing he wears can come in contact with water," she babbled on.
"A pipe burst?" she reiterated.
"Yeah. And apparently, Michel isn't as good at sweet talking Jim as I am, so I have to get him to come out off hours and fix the pipe so our guests don't need canoes to get down the hall," she groaned.
"Can we do anything to help?" he offered.
Lorelai halted. The realization she was leaving them alone for an indeterminate amount of time washed over her as it occurred to Rory as well. "Not unless you can sweet talk my plumber into coming out without charging me double time? Or have some knowledge of the inner working of pipes that means I don't have to go through all the trouble?"
He shook his head. "Probably not."
"Well, seeing how I can, I'll field this one. You two stay, see if Ross is the first to die."
"I can leave it here, if you want to watch it later," he offered.
She gave a tight smile. "I'd like that. Okay. I'll call if I'm gonna be too late," she informed them, and then she was gone.
Silence engulfed them as they were left in the sudden absence of all that had been occurring just moments before—the Brothers on pause, waiting patiently on the screen, no one else about to come in from any other room. Just him, with his hand still palm up against the underneath side of her thigh, looking at her full on in the eyes.
"So," she said hesitantly.
"So."
She closed her eyes, a brief flutter as he squeezed the muscles running up from her knee, and felt the not so gentle pressure of his fingertips as he pulled his hand down her leg. "Should we keep watching?"
He shrugged. "If you want to."
"We can do something else, if you want," she hated knowing her eyes were bouncing from his lips to his eyes, wanting to appear calm and cool, but the pull of not having the chance to be truly intimate, in only the way being alone allows, for nearly a week having its way with her seemingly involuntary reactions.
She never thought she was the kind of girl to crave sex. To be honest, she thought that only boys had such afflictions, their inability to focus on anything but getting into a girl's pants stemming from some testosterone-induced rush of insanity. Maybe it was wrong to assume such things, or to deduce that he would be satisfied with nothing short of sex once it happened the first time, but that too, had been a misnomer.
Even some nights that they were alone in his mansion, parents off to the Rivera or Thailand or wherever was posh and happening to be at the moment, clothes remained on and all they did was touch. Yet somehow she was never left in need or want, despite the overwhelming urge that even the barest brush of his hand against her face welled up in her.
"Something," he took a breath and his eyes sparkled, "else?"
She nodded, breathless. "We could talk," she swallowed, hoping he'd shake his head with a knowing smile and let his hand slide back up her leg.
"Talking is good," he leaned in to kiss her lightly, not by any means trying to rile her up.
She shuddered, trying to squelch the stirrings she felt regardless. "So, how was your day?"
"Boring," he shot back. "Yours?"
"Busy," she swallowed. "Went to class, found out about a chance to tutor underprivileged fifth graders, spent an hour on the bus reading my assignment before helping Mom at the Inn until lunch, then I went over and spent a few hours doing inventory at the bookstore," she let out a sigh.
"And the reason you won't let me loan you a car so you don't have to waste all this time on the bus would be?"
"When else would I get my reading done?" she deadpanned.
He nodded, clearly amused. "Right."
"So, nothing exciting at all happened today?"
He shook his head. "Not until about five minutes ago."
"What happened five minutes ago?" her heart rate doubled at his words. Something about the way he said them, or the way she wanted him to mean them.
"I was given the increasingly infrequent benefit of an entire house alone with my very beautiful girlfriend," he murmured, leaning and crossing the line between talking and definitively not talking.
"Says the boy that wanted to talk," she leaned her head away, to give him more access to the points on her neck he was skimming with his lips.
"Talking was your idea, if you recall."
"We don't have to just talk," she leaned forward, her hand moving to his hair, threading her fingers up from the nape of his neck, mussing the slightly messy locks in an excuse to make contact. He nodded, meeting her lips even before she got the sentence out, and slid down off the couch, sitting in front of her on his knees. His hands wrapped around her back, pulling her up to the edge of her seat.
"I can't believe you didn't tell me you were taking summer courses," he kept up the guise of just talking, while his hands were clearly moving onto other activities. She did her best to focus on the topic of this conversation while exploring her, his hands on either side of her legs, inching toward her hips.
"Just two," she scooted forward more on her own, hooking her ankles underneath the curve of his ass. "Just to catch up."
He rolled his eyes, which directly contrasted with the way he picked up her arm and skimmed his lips along the soft skin from the underside of her wrist, up to her elbow. "You made the top three percent of our class. You've caught up."
"Not officially," she couldn't help the hitch in her breathing as she watched with mesmerized eyes, waiting for his next move. "Besides, they're always posting extracurricular activities on the student information board during the summer."
"Whatever. Does that mean you aren't free this Saturday? Or do you have some Harvard-impressing to do?" he let go of her arm, sliding both of his around to her backside and coming between her and the couch. She leaned forward, to get closer still. He took in a breath, as if swallowing his laugh, and she pinched him.
He put his forehead against hers, his eyes looking into hers more seriously. Her stomach lurched, the feel of something more on the verge of taking place flooding her body.
"Do you ever think of going somewhere else?" he asked quietly, as she brought her hands up to the back of his neck, weaving her fingers together and creating a hammock in which to hold him if he should lean away.
"Besides Harvard?" she asked, her tone uncertain.
He nodded slightly, his nose brushing her cheek as he did. "There are a few other options, you know."
"Not for me," she said, the script already well rehearsed from her lips. "It's the best choice for me."
His eyes narrowed at her words, but his hands didn't move. She itched to squirm one way or the other, as if to help his palms down the trail they'd begun just a few moments ago. Just up and around, and down, so far down….
"Why?"
She locked eyes on his, confused as to why in this moment, right now, when he could have anything he wanted, giving her something she needed at the same time, he was choosing this line of action.
"What do you mean, why? What's wrong with Harvard?"
His shoulder hitched up in a shrug, but he didn't let go of her. He was still close, so intimate, in her face. "I just wondered what set it apart from every other Ivy League school that would clamor to have you, when you made, what I can only imagine, was a behemoth pro/con list."
She couldn't meet his eyes. There was an intensity there, one she wasn't comfortable under the scrutiny of. It wasn't lust, she knew that for sure. If he wanted her, he had her in his grasp. He could have her, and his too. Right now, he only wanted answers.
"It has all the classes I want, and it'll take me where I want to go."
She had answers prepared.
"Yale, Brown, Princeton, Columbia," he began, a finger landing firmly against her spine as he listed each one off.
"What are you doing?"
"Listing off all the schools that meet your set criteria."
Now she locked eyes with him, though crossly. "I repeat, what is wrong with Harvard?"
"Have you ever even been there?"
He was going to be relentless, which she should have known, but she'd been blindsided by the whole turn of conversation. The moment her mother walked out the door, she had imagined his attention being focused on the here and now, not what might come years down the line.
"Why is that even relevant?"
She didn't know if she was angry because he wouldn't accept her answers as a final word on the subject, or if it was because he seemed more concerned with this conversation than the fact they were finally alone for the first time since the prior weekend. She took a deep breath and vowed to calm down. If he wanted an argument, she could provide a thought-out counter point.
"You'll be living there for four years. It's very relevant."
"Boston is a great town—you've even said that yourself."
"I do love Boston. But I'm not the one that's Harvard-bound."
"Is that what this is about? Harvard isn't good enough for the DuGrey family?"
She knew it was harder and lower than she'd meant to hit the moment she said it, before she felt him stiffen under her touch. He broke the binds of her fingers as he pulled back and stood up.
She looked up at him, waiting for the next scathing response that had no doubt already formed on his tongue, lightening fast as per usual.
"You wouldn't understand."
Now she was enraged. She was on her feet, now in his face. "I wouldn't understand what?"
His eyes flashed, as if he was putting distance between them, but she ignored the warning and took a step forward. "What happens if you don't get into Harvard?"
"Why wouldn't I get into Harvard? I've done everything in my power—," she began.
He put a hand up, another barrier, and cut her off. "I'm not saying you aren't the perfect student," he yelled. "I'm saying, if disaster struck, and you fucked up for once, and didn't get in," he reiterated, "what would happen?"
Her arms crossed over her chest. Images of what could happen to prevent her future from coming to her flooded her mind. "I… don't know," she stammered.
His voice softened. "You'd go to your second choice, and you'd be just as happy," he answered for her.
"I don't have a second choice," she muttered unhappily, her hands holding tight to her ribcage.
"No, I don't have a second choice," he yelled.
"So, this is about you? God, Tristan, why don't you preface every single session of double talk with some kind of sick disclaimer—'you think I'm interested in your well-being, but I'm just a selfish bastard!'" she matched his tone.
"You have options!" he yelled.
"And you're mad because I know what I want?"
"Do you?" he yelled back, grabbing hold of her arms.
"Yes!"
"Do you?" he asked again, tugging her toward him.
"Do you?" she tossed back at him, her vision a series of colors and shapes. He was too close again, and she just wanted to scream, or throw up, or cry… anything to let out the feeling that was building up inside of her.
"I know what I have to do," he said, unable to calm his breathing. "I'd have to burn Yale to its foundation to not get in."
"You're going to Yale?" she asked, the idea of leaving Chilton and going their separate ways settling into a crack in her mind, widening by the second. Her arms dropped out of their hostile stance, now sliding up his elbows as he continued to hold fast to her.
"What do you want?" he asked, for what felt like the millionth time, as things she hadn't considered melded together in her mind.
She looked up into his eyes, which were heavy with anger and questions, but there was something else, glimmering beneath the surface.
"I," she swallowed, feeling a pull between her bones and his. "I don't," she closed her eyes and shook her head. "I don't know."
What she knew was his strength, as he lifted her off the floor. She knew the texture and pressure of his lips against her skin, increasing and consuming, stealing her air. She knew the power of honesty as her back met her bedroom door hard, enough to jar her bones, had they not taken on a form more akin to Jell-O than keratin.
Her tears fell harder as he moved away from her mouth, the beads of salty moisture sliding first down her skin before transferring to his. All she could feel was heat and the sensation of falling into him. She didn't want to feel any part of her body that wasn't in contact with his, and he cradled her against him as he used his other hand to crudely rub against another area of damp heat. She swiveled and bucked, still not close enough to ease any ache.
"Rory," his voice was hoarse, from the yelling, she didn't know, but he sounded so worn and her eyes opened.
He was at the precipice, the dividing line, so close to giving her what she thought she'd wanted. Giving her the option.
"I love you," she said it quickly, faster than she thought she ever could, faster than her mind could doubt the meaning of it, the reasons behind it, to wonder if it was a good idea.
It was just as quickly that she went crashing over the dividing line, head on, shattering everything.
She'd never gotten the feeling before that he'd been holding out on her; holding back either his imagination or capabilities when they had sex. She hadn't been naïve enough to believe that his actions meant more than his words, or that the way he kissed her while he was inside of her was in any way some form of bond or testament of love.
She'd tried to convince herself, after she was alone and back in her own twin bed, that the same rules applied to her. That the first night that no was the furthest word from both her mind and lips and all she didn't want him to do was stop that it was just sex. Despite the fact she'd been taught that it took more than love to lose yourself that much, he'd not seemed to need to hear her say anything other but 'yes,' 'please,' and 'more.'
She'd been lying to herself.
It had been more than love. And until a few moments ago, she'd believed the fabrications, the carefully thought-out words that were simply guised as a safety net. Not that she doubted the words when he'd expressed them to her. But she'd been left no choice but to feel how much he meant it as she uttered the words so thoughtlessly and sincerely, having room for no other words in her body, heart, or mind in that moment. He took them in, making her find out what it was truly like to dissolve in someone else.
It was the night she discovered it was okay to lose herself to him in the process, because he was able to hold her. To evoke parts of her she couldn't reach herself. To make her feel alive to the point of bursting out of her body.
His hands were on either side of her face, her damp hair clinging against her temples. She couldn't blink; she couldn't tear herself away from his eyes from even the millisecond it took to flutter her eyelashes. Her breath matched his, syncopated and hard, his pelvic bone digging into hers from an angle she'd never considered as his lips found her shoulder, turning her, turning them, making her gasp as she held onto the side of her mattress, wishing for the brief moment thought was able to slip into her mind that they were on his vast expanse of a mattress instead of her slighter version.
Her knuckles went white as she rang in her finale with a triumphant cry, amazed at the immediate recoil, like an overcompensation of the wheel that sent her flying back in the other direction.
"Oh, fuck," she cried.
His lips were at her ear, a feat she could only imagine from the angle he still held her in. "Not this time," he assured her, barely getting the words out in time for her to feel his own body giving in, shuddering and shaking, his fingers deep into the flesh of her hips.
She found her way back into the cradle of his arms a while later, her head on his chest, though his head was positioned where she normally slid her feet under the covers each night. His hands slid against her skin, circling and soothing, though she could feel the vibration of his still-erratic heart beat.
"That was," she searched every elusive word that was held in her extensive vocabulary. Nothing seemed to encapsulate every last exquisite moment of what had transpired between them, in her case more than once.
"Did you mean it?" he asked, the irony of the situation striking her to the point of making her want to laugh. To her credit, she held it in to the point of a wide smile, looking down at him with only laughter in her eyes.
He let out a low growl, rolling them over so she was trapped on her back under his weight, the delight of every last inch of his skin pressed into hers. "I take that as a no," he ducked his head to hide his disappointment into her neck. She took her hands gently to cradle his face, bringing him up to face her again.
"I meant every word," she assured him. "This changes everything, doesn't it?"
He didn't answer her right away. "I don't know."
She looked at him questioningly, her mouth opened slightly in case her mind wrapped around what he meant in the lull, the breath he took before explaining.
"I don't know how this works. I just know I've never wanted to hear anyone say those words to me before."
She opened her mouth again, but he shook his head. "Before, about Harvard," he rested his chin on her shoulder.
"It's always been Harvard," she sighed.
"Do you feel it, like you feel this?" he trailed a hand down the midline of her chest, down her torso to a spot several inches below her belly button, where the tug of longing was anchored.
"I thought I did," she said honestly, "but lately, I'm realizing that what I thought was the right path might just have been what was the safe path."
"I have this thing, Saturday, I can't get out of. My parents are dragging me to New Haven, for this alumni dinner thing. I thought, if you wanted, we could go early, check out the school."
"Yale?" she asked, the very word sounding foreign to her.
"Maybe we can hit Boston in a couple weeks. Take off for New York in a month."
She shook her head and smiled. "I never thought you'd proposition to take me around to college campuses."
He smirked. "Yeah, well, there can be overnight stays involved, too. It isn't all in the pursuit of higher learning."
"What time are you gonna pick me up?"
He leaned back in for a kiss, lingering and full. She maintained the feeling of timelessness for as long as they could, only pulling themselves out of her bed and back into the world of World War II and pizza after her mother called to let her know she'd be back before midnight. By the time Lorelai walked back in the door, he'd fallen asleep in her lap for real, but she remained staring past the screen, deep in thought about the ideas that had opened up to her since he'd walked into the house that night.
He was opening up possibilities that she'd never imagined for herself.