Expectation is a scary thing. This was supposed to be a short fic, but now it has become a life story. Thanks for all the wonderful feedback. Am very happy to know that I'm not alone in the Deanland. ;)

3: Of the Saviors and the Losers, Cigarettes and Beer.

Thou art gone from my gaze like a beautiful dream,
And I seek thee in vain by the meadow and stream.
-George Linley, "Thou Art Gone"

The jet-black silence of the dark wood outside the car was nothing compared to the heavy silence inside. Of course, this didn't bother Dean a bit. This was how it was going to be for the next thirty minutes. Get The Jackass to the town, then Dean would be off to his own, peaceful night of exorcising his own demons. This was nothing. This was just a thirty-minutes of detour, that was all. Not an impediment.

Of course, this couldn't have not been a mistake.

Tristan, who had been looking out the window for the first two minutes, had begun to fidget in his seat three minutes later. Five minutes later he was actively looking into Dean's CD collection, stereo, and everything that was within his arm's reach. Tristan surprisingly had a good sense of not really messing with Dean's stereo itself, but when he decided to venture into the glove compartment instead, Dean's patience reached its limit.

"Cut it out," Dean hissed, closing the cover with a bang.

Tristan put his hands up in mock-surrender, "Thought you were the one with the no-talk policy."

In Dean's mind, there were a few ways to handle this situation. A) Ignore Tristan and curse the fate, B) Kick him out--literally, C) Kill him and dump the body. Dean thought C was the most appealing of the moment, but also very much illegal. Dean decided to opt for A, surprising himself.

Tristan shut up, but that lasted exactly twenty seconds. "You have PJ Harvey."

So had really gone the no-talk rule, Dean thought with irritation. "And? So? Therefore?"

"You actually like PJ Harvey?"

"No, I keep two of her CDs for decoration purposes. What do you think?"

Tristan stared at him for a moment, expression inscrutable, but soon turned away. Why did the fact Dean had PJ Harvey in his car mattered to Tristan? Dean didn't know, he had no wish to know, but this suddenly chastened Tristan bothered him.

And the heavy silence that didn't bother Dean a a minute ago, for some reason, began to bother him too.

"You're supposed to be away at some school," Dean said, cursing fate now and again, "Why are you out? Did you escape or something?"

"I was in the military school, not prison."

Dean snorted. "And the difference being?"

"Point taken."

"So?"

Tristan's lips twitched. "I escaped."

Hardly freaking har-har. "What the hell are you doing here, then? The last time I checked, Hawaii is not this way, and neither is Disneyland." Tristan said nothing in reply, which was enough of an answer already. Dean could easily guess. "Don't tell me, you came to see her."

"Alright, I won't."

Jackass. And just what was stopping Dean from going for the option C? Samaritan thing? Maybe. Karma? Maybe. Murdering someone being illegal in this country? Oh yeah, the last one sounded remarkably like the answer.

"Stop with the murderous glare thing," Tristan made a dismissive hand gesture, "I'll have you know that I am not here to steal your girlfriend."

"She's not mine to steal from."

Dean felt Tristan freeze, felt his surprise. Dean said nothing. There had been no need, no need, to tell Tristan this little tidbit, but oh well. Anyway, after a day in Stars Hollow even Tristan would find it out soon enough. What difference did it make?

And it was the truth. Rory was no longer his. Stating it out loud was supposed to help. It didn't.

"What the hell are you saying?"

Tristan seemed to turn red-hot on the face, and Dean felt himself turning cooler, colder, freezing to the core of his very being. "You heard me. She's not mine to steal from. So if you're thinking this is a god-given chance to give a go at Rory, I wish you all the luck in the world."

Tristan searched Dean's face, anger that had flared in his eyes slowly deflating. Dean, silent, reached for the stereo. After a long, futile series of attempts to find a station that wasn't dedicated to Soft Rock, Easy Listening for the 30's, or America's Best Country Music, he inserted PJ Harvey.

There had been times when Dean had believed with foolish confidence that he would not, could not, be in a cotton candy bubblegum love that such popular music stations advocated. Sure, Rory was his first love, but it didn't mean he had to be in the N'sync Love, the Backstreet Boys Love, or God forbid, Britney Spears Love. He had fooled himself to be in a love that was of Shelley, as taught by Rory. He had fooled himself to be in the love of T.S. Eliot scale. And what this love had ended up being was of PJ Harvey--some parts depressing, some parts painful, some parts bittersweet, but overall, true. He supposed that was the truth. He still didn't know what love was, but he had loved Rory Gilmore.

It was over now.

"There's someone else in the picture, isn't it?" Tristan spoke eventually, his voice tight, "And he stole her right in front of your eyes."

Dean tightened his grip on the wheel. "If you're that inclined to walk to Hawaii, be my guest."

Silence.

"Yes," Dean said finally. His jaw tightened. "That's exactly what happened."

He'd expected Tristan to laugh, dance, sneer, all the things that he bet Tristan had wanted to do since.

But Tristan, after a moment of mute silence, only said, "Then that bastard's done something I could never have."

That was unexpected, Dean thought. No Na-Na-Na-Na-Na? Not even feigned sympathy? Just an admission, with frightening honesty that was bound to scare guys like Tristan...and Dean himself. Dean did not know what to say.

Thankfully, he didn't have to; he saw the familiar streets of Stars Hollow getting closer and closer. Dean collected himself. He navigated through the main street as quietly as he could muster. "I can't offer you a place to crash for the night," Dean said quietly, "but I can drop you off at an inn."

Tristan didn't object. When the car came to a full stop in front of the only proper inn they had, coincidentally where the mother of the girl who they were both in love with managed, it was nearing three a.m. Dean turned off the engine, and they were left without any sound. No sound of the low humming of the car, or the voice of PJ Harvey.

Tristan, after a few seconds of hesitation, opened the door. "Look--"

Dean saved Tristan from the pain of having to thank him, "Yeah, got it. Just go."

Tristan walked out. Good riddance, Dean thought. He was finally alone. Alone, alone, alone. Thank God. Nothing would deter him from the path to the night of lone introspection.

The road ahead of him seemed long, exhaustingly long, dark without a hint of light.

The silence inside the car was deafening.

Through the window, Dean could see Tristan, who didn't seem at all inclined to get into the Inn, still standing outside. A flicker of light, a thin line of smoke, then soon Tristan was instantly shrouded in Dean's eyesight. Smoke. Lost.

"Tristan."

Tristan slowly turned around, head tilted and eyes asking a question.

What the hell, Dean thought for what seemed like the tenth time. "There are better things in life than cigarette."

Sneering laugh. "Like what?"

"Beer."

The world was wonderfully funnier and decidedly weirder after several six-packs.

For one thing, Dean no longer held any resentment whatsoever toward the guy beside him, even though that guy happened to be named Tristan, formerly known as The Jackass. Secondly, he felt good--really, really good. So good in fact that the ground seemed to be doing the strange dance, waving up and down, and he felt he was on a bark floating in the ocean on a stormy night, but in a good and not about-to-throw-up kind of way.

There was no pub that opened that late at night anywhere in Star's Hollow. Actually, there was no pub that would admit underaged kids in the middle of the night in this town, period. So they had come to his garage yard and immediately begun devouring bottles of beer that Dean had hidden under one of the totaled car seats.

The sky was clear and dark and deep. Everyone was asleep. There were no residents near enough to complain about noises, and Dean was drunk enough not to care about consequences of any kind. So he said, "Go ahead."

Tristan cocked his head. "You sure?"

Dean waved his hand, not about to bother with more words when another bottle of beer was waiting for him.

Tristan arched his eyebrow. "Well then." He tightened his grip on the old aluminum bat Dean had given him and began beating already broken pieces of metals that once made up a beat-up car. The loud clang's and boom's seemed to magnify in the quite atmosphere of the night, but, really, Dean did not care.

"Feel any better?" Dean asked finally, after Tristan finished his ten-minutes of the hitting session with a loud clang and as the bat flew over and hit the metal fence.

"Maybe." Tristan swiped the back of his hand across his forehead, collapsing on the ground. He gulped down a whole bottle without an intake of breath. "So, this is what you barnboys do for fun, huh? Beat the crap out of...crap. Figures."

Dean half smiled. "What do you caviar-fed, overeducated geeks do for fun?"

"I run."

It was Dean's turn to arch his eyebrow. "You don't seem like the running type."

"Yeah, well, surprise. You don't know everything about me."

"And I really would like to keep it that way."

Both of them stopped and glanced at each other.

"Well, too bad, too late," Tristan said.

They sank back on the porch of the shack Dean used as storage and grabbed yet another bottles. The bottles clanged against one another, the only pleasant sound that broke the silence that surrounded them. The air was slightly on the chilly side, but that was quickly fixed with the hot alcohol in their system.

"What's this place anyway?" Tristan asked the question he seemed to have formed the moment he had laid his eyes on this place. "Where old, pathetic cars come in to die?"

"I built cars here."

"You build cars?"

"Built."

"So those pieces that I just crushed into powder minutes ago were--"

"Were to become a fashionably classic red convertible, yes."

Tristan seemed to be trying hard to hide genuine intrigue, and doing a bad job at it. "Why past tense?"

Dean wondered if he was really losing it, actually volunteering any kind of information to Tristan. "Built one for Rory. I saw Jess driving it."

And he had put a part of himself in that car, for Rory, only for her. He wasn't going to do that again. Ever.

Tristan only nodded. If it was possible, he almost seemed to hear what was unsaid.

Was he really doing a heart to heart with Tristan in the middle of the night, drinking beer? Well, he had long since decided to chalk up everything he had done and would do as under-the-influence behaviors if they ever came back to haunt him, so. Dean shock his head. "This is weird."

"What is? Here we are, two guys who could've killed each other should the occasion arise, talking and sharing like actual pals?"

"Pretty much."

"Don't jump to conclusions, barnboy. I'll get perverse joy out of stealing Rory right back from whatzhisname."

"Jess," Dean spoke the word with disgust, "And you're always welcome to try."

In between the fifth and sixth bottle of beer, they had considered going after Jess with baseball bats or sacking his house, but the plan, they had decided, was going to involve police and may cause too many unwanted casualties. Dean hated himself for being unable to get out being a 'good boy' even when he was drunk for all the sense of the word.

Rory wanted a bad boy, that Dean had figured out by now. He was never envious of rebellious streaks Jess seemed to possess that had Rory charmed, though. He had chalked off guys like Jess as punk and gone his way before and it was exactly what he did with Jess. Even now, when Rory was 'amorous' with Jess, Dean was far from being envious. Frustrated, maybe, mad like hell, maybe, but never envious. He had a family. He was a brother. He was a son. Those things that Rory never seemed to think big of (after all, just how many times had she been to his house while he'd been practically living in hers the last year?) were, unfortunately, what defined him. If she wanted a bad boy, fine, she got herself one already. She didn't need him. He didn't need him. He was just fine!

And which stage of denial was he on?

"...you ever think about the future?" Tristan's voice was slugged, and Dean missed the good portion of what he'd said.

"What?" Dean blinked.

"Future, dumbass. What do you wanna be, how you're planning to ruin your life, college, ambition, that sort of crap."

Dean had already passed the stage of wondering if he was really going to discuss his future plan with Tristan. He was drunk, after all. "Ambition, no. Maybe an engineer, but I'm not big on math. Without the luxury of your money or Jess's stinkin' genius brain, more likely to end up a garage worker, but that's fine. I have everything I want now, my family, friends, Ro--" Correction, he had had everything he wanted. Not any more. "Well, I will always have my family, I suppose."

"God, you're boring. What are you, a saint?" Tristan shook his head in mock-disgust. "Your family. What are they like?"

Dean had also passed the stage of wondering since when Tristan was actually interested in his life. "Dad sells car stereo. Mom works to transcribe medical records. There's one younger sister who does not want to see me kiss another girl but still likes me to introduce her a cute friend of mine."

"Must be nice."

Dean didn't think Tristan was being sarcastic. If ever, Tristan sounded slightly envious. He must be really drunk. "Yours?" Dean asked.

"I'm a bastard."

"Tell me something I don't know." Then Dean frowned. "Literally?"

"I wish." Tristan laughed. It sounded harsh, edged and wounded. "Father treats me like one. Couldn't think of any use for me so put me to the West Point and hope I'd stay quiet and forever remain a lieu for my whole life. At least wouldn't drill a hole to my trust fund too much that way. And he tells me 'You'll make one fine soldier, Tristan'. Hah."

"I really can't see you as a soldier of any kind. A spoiled brat who's never worked to earn a single dime in his life, but a soldier?"

"See," Tristan waved in the empty air, bitter, "you're like my mortal enemy, and yet you know that about me. My father--he doesn't even get that. He knows...nothing about me, really."

Dean didn't know what else to say. "That sucks."

"Very much." There was a small, lopsided grin on Tristan's face. "Always wanted to be anything but my father. And now I turned to something like this. Pathetic." He threw a bottle he had been holding at the pile of empty beer bottles in front of him. "Okay, why the hell am I pouring my heart out to you?"

There were a lot of different types of drunk. Dean wondered Tristan was the pouring-the-heart-out type drunk. "Beats me."

"I was an asshole," Tristan said abruptly, surprising Dean even more. He looked at Dean once, then looked straight in front of him. "To you, before. I lived to piss you off. Maybe, well, I was jealous."

Dean did a double take. Was it an apology he was hearing? Tristan really was drunk. "So the military school really does perform wonders."

"It's the beer talking."

"No wonder." Dean looked away. He had to give Tristan credit. This apology business was harder than he had thought, even with the alcohol. "I guess I was, too."

Tristan smirked. "What do you mean, 'was'?"

Dean threw a can at Tristan's way, which he dodged quickly. They both hid grins.

The silence settled down again, but it was not at all uncomfortable. Not any more.

"What are you gonna do now?" Dean asked after a while. He told himself he wasn't worried about Tristan because he couldn't possibly be, but the fact was he was. Worried.

"Go home, see Dad, wait to see if he would really disown me. After that, dunno. Always did want to see Hawaii."

"Baywatch, huh?"

"You betcha."

Tristan looked up to the sky once and lay back on the ground carelessly, using his arms as the pillow. Dean leaned back, watching the night sky. He had once stayed like this, here, before, with Rory.

This is totally, unwarrantedly unfair, Dean thought grumpily. Just what did he have to do to just forget the hell about her? Even totally intoxicated and mentally delusional, Rory didn't leave his brain well alone. Dean sighed out loud, thinking Tristan was asleep, so he almost jumped when Tristan spoke.

"Rory changed me. She almost saved my life. Almost. She would have saved me if I were less of a jackass, you know."

Dean had known that. Maybe, just maybe, that had been the reason Dean had guarded Rory from Tristan with dark ferocity. He had known that if Tristan tried truly hard enough, if Tristan had known what Rory really liked, Rory might have gone to him instead of Dean, at least a part of Rory that wanted rebellious, exciting someone who would take her away from life. Dean had wondered, time and again, whether Rory would be happy with just him. Whether he was enough for her. Good enough for her, smart enough for her, funny enough for her, interesting enough for her. His fear, in retrospect, had been justified.

"I came here tonight, thinking that if I try hard enough, I might be able to get her to save me this time."

"Then go see her," Dean said, surprising himself yet again. "I'm not stopping you."

"And have you kick my ass after? Gee, no thanks." Tristan grinned. "And now I know that's a wrong way to go about it. I know that now. I'm the one who should do my own saving. Funny, you of all people should help me realize that."

Dean knew people suddenly didn't become confidants, didn't become close friends overnight. At the same time he knew, even while wondering why Tristan had chosen to tell him all this, Tristan was being honest.

Dean wasn't kidding himself that he suddenly had an epiphany on life. But he saw, in a brief quicksilver of moment, everyone struggling with their own demons to fight, their own hell to bear, all trying to find their ways into life. What they really wanted, perhaps, was someone to share this all with. He and Tristan, in their own ways, failed to find that someone.

Dean didn't tell Tristan any of this. Instead, he said, all goofy, drunken grin, "If you go to her, I probably will kick your ass."

"We still don't like each other," Tristan said in mock solemnity.

"Of course."

"It's agreed, then."

"Yeah."

They stayed like that for a long while, Tristan lying down, Dean nursing an empty bottle with half a smile and full of regret. Dean thought of things said and unsaid, to Rory. He thought of how little he had meant to her. Besides having a good time and falling in love, this stuff he had talked to Tristan was what he should have shared with Rory. This stuff, this was what Rory should've known. He had told her none of this. Dean had told no one. And Rory, for all her smarts, didn't know him.

He wasn't sure which was more painful, the actual break-up, or finding out how little he had meant to her or how little she seemed to actually know him.

It was almost dawn; Dean could see a faint trace of amber beginning to dye the horizon, the dark indigo of the sky slowly turning lighter.

The morning, as slowly as it came, was a signal to a quick end of the night. The end of their confession night.

"Build the cars again, Dean," Tristan suddenly said. "It's a crime to waste a skill like that."

Dean turned to him, surprised.

Tristan and his self-conscious half-grin again. "Thought it was my turn to hand down two cents on life-saving decisions. You scratch my back, I scratch yours."

"Well," Dean said, after a moment, "that's an analogy I could've lived without."

They actually laughed. Together. It felt strange, but it also felt nice.

Tristan sat up, and they watched the sunrise through the mist and grey cloud.

When the morning came, when it really came, they went their separate ways without any goodbye's.

Tristan didn't look back.

Dean woke up that day when the sun actually began to set, another amber rays sipping through the curtains, with hell of a hangover and something heavy bouncing up and down on his bed. A loud voice thundered in his head, and he thought an anvil or a piano dropping on him would be a lighter punishment.

"Dean! Dean! Wake up!" shouted what Dean thought to be his own little devil.

He groaned, fending off a hand that was yanking away his blanket along with the warmth that surrounded him. "Get off, Clara... Go away..."

He had no effect whatsoever on his sister. "Dad says you gotta get down and have a proper family dinner. If not, he told me to tell you, uh, 'No more middle-of-night alcohol privileges'. And, ew," she held her nose, "you're smelly, Dean."

"Really?" He slowly got up and turned to her. "Oh well, then. You brought this upon yourself." He tackled his sister and started tickling. Clara giggled and laughed, trying to dodge and tickling him back with her smaller hands.

After laughter died out, she hugged him. Just like that.

"Dean," she whispered, "are you okay now?"

He thought of Rory and her smile. He thought of his sister, who knew not much of life yet but knew him enough to see he was hurting inside. He thought of his parents, who were worried over him but said nothing. He thought of Tristan. Of how Tristan looked like when he walked away. He thought of taking chances and letting people in. He thought he might be able to try. Take another chance.

And by God, he would. He would forget, and go forward.

"Yes," he said. "I'm okay now."

Seven hours later, it became pretty obvious that he had lied to his sister.

The phone call came at two in the morning, when Dean was staring at the ceiling, ready to spend the whole night without a blink of sleep.

"Dean, that you?" a voice came through the static, hazy and distant.

He realized who the frantic voice belonged to and instantly sat up. "Lorelai? What's wrong?"

"Have you seen Rory? Is she...is she with you by any chance?"

He felt something clawing at his chest. "Why would she be with me?"

A frustrated sigh filled the line. "I don't know! I thought there was a faint chance she might be with you, with anyone! I'm barely restraining from calling her kindergarten friends. Actually, I already called the half of them. God, Dean...she's gone."

He was no longer sitting down. "What do you mean she's gone?!"

"We had a fight--argument. She ran out, and that was around five in the afternoon yesterday. And she's still no show, and it's...oh, god. It's two am, and she hasn't called and--"

"Lorelai, calm down. Did you check--"

"I called everyone. My parents, Lane--"

"Uh, Paris?"

"Hasn't seen Rory since the fifth period yesterday."

Lorelai had called Paris? Now Dean believed she'd called every single possibility. "What about Luke?"

There was a long pause. When she answered, there was odd quietness in her voice, "Luke says Jess isn't home either."

Dean felt like he was punched in the gut. Breathe in, breathe out. He steadied himself. He'd known this was coming. He had. He answered wearily, "Then the answer is fairly obvious, isn't it? Lorelai, go to sleep. She's...fine."

"No." Dean could almost hear Lorelai jumping up and down on the other side of the line. Here was Lorelai, grasping at straws, even calling her daughter's ex boyfriend, hoping it wasn't true. Dean felt her desperation so vividly that it hurt him too. "This is not like her, Dean. She wouldn't do this to me. Not after--" Whatever she was about to say, she swallowed it. She only added, dead serious, "She wouldn't do this to me. She never did this kind of thing before."

"Well, Lorelai, technically speaking--" Dean tried not to point out about the prom night, when Dean and Rory had fallen asleep and caused all the manners of trouble.

"That's different," Lorelai cut off him, somehow reading his mind, "I knew who she was out with, and, contrary to my...reaction, I didn't believe for a second you were stupid and irresponsible enough to try something idiotic with my daughter."

"And you think Jess might be?"

There was no answer, only a muted sigh.

Rory was out there with Jess, spending all night together.

The unfortunate thing, Dean thought, was that there was no more car to hammer down.

Three in the morning, his Rory box had been cleared up and sealed. He took his tool box and oiled every single item carefully. When everything was ready, he stared at the tool box for a long moment, a minute stretching into eternity. He exhaled, reaching out his hand to grab it. He thought of Tristan. Of how Tristan looked like when he walked away. He thought of taking chances and letting people in. Thought of taking another chance.

He then thought of Rory, and Jess.

His hand stopped in the midair.

He couldn't.

That night, Dean began running. He ran until his chest was ready to explode, until his legs gave out and collapsed on the ground. At that moment, he thought he might forget the cold, shivering emotion.

He thought about how many times Tristan had run like this, wondering what had gone wrong, was going wrong, would go wrong. Thought of missed opportunities, thought of things that he should've said, and haven't. He thought of lost souls. He wondered if he would be able to build cars again.

He wondered how many more nights in the future he would be out here, running.

TBC...