Summary: Trory. Set Season One Post-TBP2 and Pre-LDAT. The Kiss at Madeline's Party never happened for the purposes of this fic.
Disclaimer: I own no rights to anything that is mentioned in my stories, including the main characters that I've borrowed for my plot manipulations.
Rating: T (will be bumped up with future chapters.)
Story Title: Untouched
Chapter Title: Part Five
AN: I know you're all dying to see Louise's party. And you will. Just not yet. It's a slow build, but one that I hope is worth it. Thank you for your patience. And your amazing reviews.
Everything in his life was a competition.
Not that he could honestly remember a time that he had to put forth much effort for which to strive ahead of his other competitors in any area. When he found himself growing bored of the monotony of contending against those without the same skills and abilities as he held, he found ways to compete with himself.
Reach farther.
Push harder.
The fact that it was expected of him, success and adulation, that wasn't what drove him. To be honest, he didn't care if he got the top grade, fastest time, or highest score. All that mattered to him, all that was left for him to do, was to feel it.
He wanted to feel the vexing of his muscles as he reached and pushed, the exquisite rush that comes with pain, the sadness that comes with true pleasure. He wanted these things to overcome his body, in ways he'd yet to experience, and just once know he'd beat himself.
In the beginning, upon first seeing her walk into his classroom, she was just any other new girl. A distraction, welcome and sure to be fleeting, as the girls in his life tended to be. He scoffed at the idea of having a specific girl in his life. Girls were interchangeable, none able to make a distinct enough mark to keep him coming back. The only goal was to achieve domination faster than he had over the last unsuspecting girl, to make her scream louder, grip his shoulders harder, make her shake longer with overcoming sensation. He was growing weary of even this.
When she began her resistance, unending and scathing, his fur was ruffled. He felt the tinge of true competition and a hint of her ability to reveal him for what he was—not the king, but merely one of the others that had been given too much. Her influence on him was her stark contrast. Her innocence to his gratuity.
It kept him coming back.
It's not that they were on separate levels of innocence. While it was true that they were born into varied worlds, with different barricades for how much would be filtered for their growing ears and eyes. A difference of mindsets. Nothing had ever been shielded from him. He was expected to learn through trial by fire. Deal with whatever was thrown to him with no warning. Hurt or be hurt.
He could tell from the flash in her eyes at the very lexis that flowed from his lips that she was still shockable. That despite her great quest for knowledge she hadn't been exposed to the truly ugly, the truly evil, or the truly hard.
She wasn't out to conquer, merely rise above.
She could feel, taste, and touch.
Now it was about living vicariously.
She looked nervous when he answered the door. He could see plainly that one edge of her lower lip was darkened from her having worried it in the recent past. He could practically taste the metallic tinge of blood that seeped up through the cracks on a wound such as that. He ran a knuckle under the bottom of his own lip and extended his other arm in greeting for her to pass through. He received a nod and the lightest scent of her perfume that lingered on the breeze she created with her haste to pass.
"Where's your car?" he asked before closing the door.
"What?" she turned in her tracks, now shrugging off her jacket to reveal a form-fitting dress that seemed polar opposite from what he normally saw her in. It made her appear softer, more feminine.
"I don't see a car, and you're all dressed up. What, do you have a date picking you up later?" he teased, only half-worried.
She gave a blush of frustration. "No, but my mom does, so she dropped me here straight from the grandparents. I'm taking a bus back home."
"Your mom has a date?" he inquired.
"Yeah," she looked down, making it obvious that she would be thrilled for the line of questioning into the matter to be dropped at the confirmation.
"Don't buses stop running after a certain point at night?" he pulled his shirt sleeve up enough to reveal the face of his wristwatch. "It's already--," he began.
"If it's too late, I'll just call my grandfather and spend the night there, this isn't that big a deal," she cut him off. "Now, shouldn't we get to work?"
"Right, work. The dining room, you know your way," he nodded through to the main entry as he shut the door behind her.
--&--
Each had been writing for the better part of the last forty-five minutes, taking notes from the open books spread out all around them, developing their section of an outline from the agreed upon points they'd decided to cover in their last meeting.
His concentration was waning on the page he was staring at. He'd read the last sentence in the third paragraph fifteen times. His eyes wandered, not under his control, to the neckline of the dress she was wearing. The dress she'd chosen, knowing that she would be coming to his house at the end of the evening. He wondered if his words in his car earlier in the week had affected her choice, even in the slightest.
He'd seen his effects.
He'd watched the evidence of her defenses lowering, her entire body reacting to just his words alone. Her active imagination able to practically grant her the feel of his hands running over her body just at his very mention.
He wanted so much to feel it too.
She looked up from her notes, again able to feel his eyes on her he was sure, and he quickly averted his gaze back to his half-filled notebook page. By the time he again dared to look her way, she was caught back up in her reading, but he began to notice that her pencil had remained stilled since she caught him peeking. It was unlike her.
Unless . . . .
"You okay?"
She looked up again, relief mixing with doubt in her irises. "I'm good."
"God, I'm sorry, you want something to drink, or eat?"
She shook her head in the negative. "No, I'm fine. It's just, it's really quiet in here, isn't it?"
He watched as she looked around the cavernous room, the only sound coming from the grandfather clock in the main entryway. He was used to the quiet of his looming family home.
"Yeah, the servants usually leave after dinner is served. I don't need them around after that, so no matter what my parents' instructions are, I let them go," he nodded.
"You mean, it's just us here?"
He didn't miss the panic in her voice. No one would be able to mistake the tinge that all her muscles tightening at once caused.
"Yeah, so?"
"Where are your parents?"
He shrugged and brought his hands up to rub his temples. "Uh, I would guess somewhere in Europe, but to tell you the truth, it doesn't really matter."
"What do you do in this house all by yourself?" she shivered at the very thought.
"I'm just here to eat and sleep, really. It's actually quite preferable to my parents being around, relax. I'm not feeling neglected or anything," he assured her.
"Yeah, but don't you ever get, lonely?"
He heard it. No sarcasm. Nothing biting about her tone. Only concern.
Something inside him swelled, something unfamiliar.
"I guess. I mean, my grandfather lives about five minutes away, I see him once a week, our night is Wednesday," he smiled at her, acknowledging her similar arrangement. "My parents come home to check in every now and then, shed their disapproval and ship back off on the next obligation trip."
"Wow. I can't imagine. I mean, I guess I can. That's sort of how my father's visits are, except, I always know where he's going, and it's my mother that's disappointed," she rambled quickly, stopping just as fast as she'd started.
He watched her closely, as if she might leave her seat suddenly. She looked like she'd just let loose a matter of National Security.
"If the quiet bothers you, we can move to a room with music or something," he offered after a moment of her sustained quiet with no attempts to go back to the work in front of her.
She gave a weak smile and nodded. "That'd be good," she began to gather her books, closing them in the place she was taking notes from over her oversized notebooks, in effect merely pausing her work. He mimicked her efforts and led the way to the main staircase.
"Where are we going?" she stopped shy of stepping onto the first mahogany rise.
"My room. It has the best sound system, and all the good CDs. Unless you like listening to Barry Manilow and ABBA," he shuddered at the thought.
"Barry Manilow and ABBA?"
"My parents, for as wealthy as they are, can't buy taste," he offered. "I have a desk and a sofa in my room, it's not like we'll be all sprawled out on the bed," he assured her.
He watched as his words again planted seeds of possibility in her mind.
Evidently it wasn't as difficult a choice as she'd hoped it would have been.
"Yeah, okay. I don't think I could get much studying done to 'Dancing Queen' and 'Mandy,'" she joked, lightening the mood as she followed him up the impressive staircase and down the wide hallway to his room.
--&--
He knew he was being judged.
He stood next to his open bedroom door, watching her as she moved about the room, fingertips running along built-in bookcases, eyes widening at familiar and perplexing items, the blush that crept over her as she stumbled upon the stack of clean underwear and jock strap that had been deposited on the foot of his bed by the maid before she left for the evening.
She offered him a smile when she finished her inspection. "Where are your CDs?"
He nodded and moved to one of the cabinets on the far wall of his bedroom. He opened it, revealing his stereo and more built-in racks the perfect height for CD cases. "Take your pick. Anything but heavy metal. I can't study to anything that makes you want to head bang," he wagged a finger at her as she approached the display.
"Weenie," she teased.
It was one word, not one he would count as being encouraging in any other frame of reference, but her tone for once seemed to be showing an inlet as opposed to the wall that she was ever trying to construct between them. Even when he thought he was getting to her in the past, she had managed to later make him feel like he'd been hallucinating the lack of hostilities.
"Wow, you have more CDs than Lane, and I dare to say, a wider selection," came her amazed tone from her spot rooted still in front of the music collection.
"Lane?"
She turned to give him an embarrassed smile. She was smiling more in his presence, he noted.
"My best friend, she's something of an audiophile," she tilted her head to one side in consideration. "A closet audiophile."
"What does that mean? She's afraid of what people will think of her taste?" he teased back.
"Not people so much as her mother," she nodded in agreement and went back to her arduous task.
He went back to observing her as she tried to make her decision. Studying her was holding his attention so much better than a book ever could.
She had narrowed her eyes, to focus more sharply on what was before her perhaps, not to let any competing images interfere with her appointed duty. One leg had jutted out in front of the other, posing her in an off balance tilt. As if her body was in just as much agony over which way to position itself as her mind was over which music would aid their study session.
"If you like, I can pick something," he offered, as much as he hated to cause her legs to shift back to an even stance, allowing her skirt to fall back down from its elevated hike back down to just below her knees as she turned to look at him, two CD cases in her hands.
"I have it narrowed down to two. I just can't pick," she scrunched her nose.
"Sixteen Stone and Kick," he nodded, reading them from her upheld hands. "Pretty boy rockers?"
"They're your CDs," she laughed, thrusting them closer to his face as if to reiterate her inability to choose between them.
"Lucky for you, I have a CD changer. No choices necessary."
"Oh. Well, good then," she handed over the cases and moved past him to settle herself onto the couch to resume their study session.
He turned back, hearing the familiar opening chords to "Everything Zen" humming in the background to see her sprawled out on his couch, having made herself at home. Her hair was flipped back and splayed out, hanging over the arm of the couch, her feet resting on a pillow on the other end, her book propped up on her lap with a pencil in between her teeth as she too murmured along with the guitar riffs.
She looked like a vision. Comfortable in his room.
"So, this better?" he ventured, moving to take a seat at his unoccupied desk.
"Much, thanks," she nodded, looking up from her book. "You don't mind this, do you? I mean, my being in your room?"
Thoughts raced through his mind, as how best to answer that question. There was a certain vibe between them now, something he dared not decimate with a solitary lewd statement like how he'd dreamed of her like this, in his room, minus the study materials and clothing.
Not that it wasn't true.
"Why would I mind?" he ventured.
She shook her head and seemed to be talking herself out her line of reasoning. "No, no reason. It's just, I felt kind of weird about it myself. You know, having someone looking at all your personal stuff. Things you've had longer than you can remember, personal effects, embarrassing photos, stuffed chickens," she mused, her eyes widened with a sense of recollection filling them.
"I'm sorry, stuffed chickens?"
"It was an example," her voice threatened the willingness to cut off the easy going conversation and relinquish him back to a strictly study buddy position.
"So, who was snooping around your room?"
"Oh, you know, Dean," she said quickly, self consciously. "You know, once."
The all too recent memory of his run-in with her ex-white knight at the school's Winter Formal surged up in him like acid burning its way up his esophagus. "Yeah, I know Dean," he nodded.
"Sometimes it's unnerving to me, having someone see too much of my life like that, you know? Your room, it's your sanctuary," she confided.
"You're afraid someone will see too much?" he asked, his eyes warm as they remained trained on her.
"No, not like that, but people should have to earn their way into positions of trust, right?"
"And you didn't trust him?"
She didn't answer for a long time. So long, in fact, that he thought she was evading his question altogether.
Maybe she didn't trust him enough to give him a response.
"I guess not."
"Is that why you broke up with him?"
She shook her head, and he became fearful that she was on the verge of tears.
He never was good with tears.
"I didn't, I mean, he broke up with me," she said quietly.
"Why?" he asked, perhaps too loudly, out of surprise at the notion in general.
"What do you mean, why? He didn't want to be my boyfriend anymore. End of story," she attempted to bring her book back up, blocking her line of sight with him. As if a book would subvert him.
"Bullshit."
"What?"
There was that look again. Fascination and alarm.
"I said, bullshit. I saw him with you at the winter formal, remember? No way did that guy decide that he just didn't want to be with you anymore. What happened?"
Another pause. Except this time he knew what that meant.
She took time in gathering her courage—but he had her trust. Unwillingly and to her surprise it seemed at times, but even so. It was there.
"He, uh, he was ready for more than I was," she began slowly, "And when I couldn't reciprocate, he um, he got mad, then it was over."
Now it was her turn to watch him. A study in rage. Suddenly he was pale, yet radiating; his fists clenched around the rung on the back of his desk chair.
"Mother fucker, that asshole's dead," he growled, his eyes closing and reopening to focus on hers.
"Tristan," she said on an inhale, shaking her head.
"Rory, tell me exactly what he did," he instructed. There was no permission being sought out.
"Tristan, really, nothing--," she began only to get cut off.
"I need to know exactly what he tried, so I know how best to kill the bastard," he said louder.
She looked down, casting her gaze away from him, clearly too ashamed to lay out details.
"Rory?"
"He just, he told me he loved me."
"And then?" he egged her on, knowing that as the oldest trick in the book as a starting point to this particular game some of his peers played.
"And then? And then I couldn't say it back, and he got mad and stormed out of the car and broke up with me," she all but yelled, the memories too fresh in her mind.
He felt it. Her rage, her pain, it saturated his skin, and he watched helplessly as she started to weep openly on his couch. In his room.
"I shouldn't," she began, her book falling from her lap as she leapt up, the back of her hand raised to cover her lips.
"Hey, it's okay," he said, in his best attempt at empathy, moving to pull her against his chest. He felt a strange urge to hold her against his body, to let her focus on the sound of his heart beating, to stroke her hair until her breath fell evenly once again.
She shirked back from his touch on her shoulder, and in an instant was through his door, looking back at him. "I have to go."
And then she was gone.
This was one game he wasn't sure he could play.