A/N: Whoa, I've been updating oddly quickly... I'm so in tune with this story right now, for the time being the writer's block is banished, ha. BTW, I absolutely suck at coming up with title names so if anyone has any alternate title suggestions, I'd be very happy! I'm thinking of changing the title for a third time, so watch out for it:o). I'm thinking about doing a Trory (not in this fic, of course) which could prove to be very stupid asI'm already juggling 8 stories, butthe ideas are nagging at me so we'll have to see if I can ignore the mad impulses... : DThanks for the reviews! They fuel my writing process, lol. I always forget to put in the disclaimer, but I don't own Gilmore Girls or the characters of Tristan Dugrey or Rory Gilmore, or the idea of Chilton prep, though this specific plot is my own idea and Tara Elden is mine, too. Anyways, read on and hopefully review!
Chapter 7
Tara knew she gave off the impression that she was a little… on edge sometimes. All right, fine, she could be a bit of a bitch to certain people at certain times. Namely to Tristan whenever he spoke to her. But she wasn't cold, really. The weird but true fact was that the whole banter thing she had developed with Tristan was kind of growing on her. He was infuriating, yes. But he was the only male to get so many insults thrown at him and still come back for more. He was probably one of the only people she knew who wouldn't take her snippy remarks to heart. She had gotten used to his light-hearted retorts, which were almost always predominately laced with flirtatiousness.
Therefore, his manner earlier really nagged on Tara's mind. So, she found herself following her conscience, but definitely against her better judgement, walking towards his locker at lunch. Tristan was laughing with some guy Tara didn't know, and he seemed to be in fine spirits. Doubt and hesitancy clouded Tara's mind as she slowed down. This was really stupid and she knew it. All signs pointed to Tristan taking this in his always-arrogant manner. What she was planning to do would give a very unnecessary ego boost to his already clearly definitive self-confidence and would only succeed in making him even more conceited… Yet, she still remembered the sharpness in his voice and how quickly he had replaced that with a seemingly carefree smirk. That stupid voice tsked that he could be faking it all. It wasn't her problem, she told herself. And yet, she was still standing there when Tristan's friend had left, leaving Tristan alone at his locker.
Taking a breath and steadying herself for the regret she knew she'd be feeling very soon, Tara took the last few steps to his locker. She opened her mouth to speak… and stopped once Tristan had turned to face her, smirk readily placed on his face. She instantly turned around. This was a bad idea…
"Oh, come on, Mary, I know you came over to say something to me. You can do it, don't be shy," Tristan laughed. "I know my attractiveness is impossibly blinding to the senses, but don't let it intimidate you."
Ten thousand snarky remarks filled her head but somehow she ignored them all, her concerned inner do-gooder's whispers still thrashing at her to reach out. "Tristan, I just wanted to see if you-" How could she phrase this in a nice, yet in an I-still-think-you're-a-piece-of-shit sort of way? "Do you still want to go to lunch?"
Tristan's surprise was evident. He raised his eyebrows, a half-smile forming on his lips. Well, well, well someone was being friendly. The smile faded a bit as the obviousness of her intentions floated through his mind. Keeping his expression neutral, if not a little bored, Tristan answered, "Tara, I told you I was fine. You don't have to baby sit me. I don't want your pity."
"Oh come on, what if I want to bask in your Highness's glory?" Tara sarcastically snorted. "Don't flatter yourself, Dugrey, we have to work on that project and you missed English class today."
"You want to work through lunch?" he crossed his arms.
"You want to fail?" Tara answered, mimicking his arm crossing. "Okay, now you took the notes last time, if you lost them I swear I will make you pay."
"You're sounding a bit like Paris. That's not a good thing." Tristan said.
"Hurry up, we only have an hour and knowing you, you're probably going to procrastinate or get sidetracked in some way so we'd better get started immediately. We can't do it in the cafeteria, there's way too many people who would skip up to you and talk, so let's go to one of the cafes near here. The closest one is just across the street, I think that's the best option. That way, we have a window of time, we'd have a time frame that happens after we ordered and before the food arrives, meaning in theory that you'd have to work." Tara rambled.
Tristan knew full well that this was still a pity, let's-make-sure-sensitive-Tristan-is-peachy-keen offer, but he was grateful that she covered it up with the project as an alibi. Even through her brisk words, he could still see the concern in her eyes. Serves him right for letting himself snap, he hadn't lost control of himself in a while.
"I don't lose anything." Tristan said, opening his locker so she could see into it. He knew precisely where the notes were and he found them in a few seconds.
Staring into his impeccably organized locker, Tara couldn't help but gawk, "Oh my God. I would never have guessed that you of all people are a neat freak!" She took a step closer to get a better view of the locker.
Tristan chuckled, and sheepishly and slightly defensively replied, "I'm not a neat freak."
"There are shelves dividing up textbooks and subject notes. It's colour coded. You're a neat freak." She shook her head.
"Maybe now you'll trust me a bit," he smiled. "I know exactly where to place everything. I'm an expert." He smoothly placed his hand on her thigh and leaned in. "Want a demonstration?"
Pushing him off of her, Tara lightly pushed Tristan towards the door. "We have homework to work on, and even if I had all of eternity and you were the last living thing in the entire friggin universe I still wouldn't let you come within twelve inches."
"I can work outside of twelve inches." He leered.
"Oh can it. Bring your notes, and let's get a move on." She said.
As Tristan watched the girl walk a little bit ahead of him, he couldn't help but smirk. Was it just him or was she actually beginning to lighten up more around him? Had he said what he said to her when they first met, he probably would've gotten a slap. All right, so she was obviously being a bit softer to him since his shaky outburst that morning, but it still signified that she didn't completely hate him. Which was all he really needed. Now that he had one foot in the door, the rest was fairly easy.
As if she could read his thoughts, Tara paused a moment to wait for him to catch up and gave him a pointed look. "I know that smirk, and I know what you're probably thinking. So stop. You are a despicable vermin that I would never date, unless you've learned nothing of all my actions towards you since we've met. I've decided that for the purpose of this project I'll be somewhat human to you, but that does not in any way mean that I've grown fonder of you. So stop smirking!"
"You really are Paris-like." Tristan cocked his head.
"Shut up! I am not." She shoved him into the wall.
"Ow! Yeah, I definitely see Paris. Violent and aggressive, not to mention mean." Tristan rubbed his arm.
His choice of his last adjective persuaded a tiny smile to appear on Tara's face. It made him sound like a little boy; it was a juvenile comment she hadn't heard in ages. "I'm not violent or aggressive, it's called being ASSERTIVE! It's not my fault that I care about my grades and actually want to get into an ivy league, unlike some people (cough) you. And I am not mean, can't you just accept the fact that maybe I don't LIKE you?"
"Are you ever friendly?" he asked.
"If your first words to me weren't along the lines of 'so, do you want to let me screw you in the janitor's closet?' I might be a bit more open." She rolled her eyes.
"Hey, you jumped to that conclusion. I was being a gentleman, all I suggested was that it might be helpful for me to give you a tour of the school, seeing as you were new. It was an innocent attempt at friendship, is it my fault you're so paranoid?" Tristan said, amused.
"First lesson: if you ever want me to be anything less than hostile to you, stop trying to bull shit me, as I said earlier. I dislike liars almost more than I dislike pervs. Well, really, it's a tie, I guess." She rolled her eyes. The two crossed the street, the café was within view.
"All right, all right. Is it my fault you're so damn hot?" Tristan smirked.
"Do all people with penis's have the brain capacity of a gorilla? Honestly, could you get any more cave man?" retorted Tara.
"See, I just paid you a compliment and you insulted me. You've never said anything nice to me in the one and a half weeks we've known each other." Tristan mock-pouted.
"You're good at taking rejection." She smiled sweetly. "Now maybe one day, if you stop being such an ass, I'll pay you an actual compliment."
"You're an ass, too." He laughed.
"Maybe if you would stop with this whole act you've put up and actually let people in to more than just the arrogant wiseass, I'd like you more." She muttered under her breath resentfully.
"What?" he blinked.
The two were now sitting across from each other at the café. Tristan had wisely decided that sitting next to her wouldn't be the best idea.
"Never mind." She shook her head. "Come on, let's get out the project papers."
"You know, you don't need homework as an excuse to have lunch with me. You could just ask." Tristan crossed his arms.
"And have you spaz out that you don't need my pity?" she raised an eyebrow. "Listen, Dugrey, I know there's got to be more to you than this whole spoiled rich-kid playboy thing you keep slapping in my face. Isn't there?"
"There's got to be more than this whole man-hating distanced, cold, bitchiness to you." Tristan pointed out evasively.
"Did you just say I was a bitch?" she stuck her jaw out indignantly.
"You can be one." He shrugged. She threw a peppershaker at him. "Hey! You told me not to lie and bull shit you!"
"If I'm a bitch, bastard doesn't even begin to describe you." She sullenly responded.
"I have a healthly appreciation for the opposite sex, I'll admit to that. Okay, so I've been described as horny. And I can be a bit edgy at times, but I'm not a bastard." He shook his head.
"I'm sure the female population at Chilton would agree whole-heartedly." Tara said drolly.
"Is it bastardly for me to realize that I'm no longer interested in a girl and I don't want to lead her on?" Tristan said stubbornly.
"The fact that you let a girl know that you're not interested by making out with another girl in front of her is bastardly." She answered.
"I don't do that," Tristan stated.
"You're a man whore, admit it."
"I have a decent list of ex-girlfriends but I've never cheated on any of them." Tristan straightened, taking a sip from his coffee.
"Fine, fine." She shrugged. "Okay, so you got all huffy earlier when I assumed that you got drunk at a party. So if that wasn't the case, why are you so hung over?"
"Never mind that, I didn't get that wasted." Tristan brushed off. He wasn't going to tell her anything; that much was certain.
"Will your friends mind that you left without telling them?" Tara awkwardly asked, covering for the silence that had passed.
"I don't need their approval," he laughed, "What about you? How are you finding Chilton? Made any new friends yet?"
"It's hard… I'll admit it, I'm kind of floundering a bit with school." The girl answered honestly. "And, as you've so kindly noted and pointed out, I'm not the most social person."
"Floundering?" Tristan raised his eyebrows as he played a bit with the rim of his cup. "You give off the aura of a person who would be at the top of the class. Giving Paris and Rory a run for their money."
"It's just that everyone seems to be so far ahead… the two previous years spent here that nearly everyone had gives me a disadvantage for sure… I feel out of the loop. Everyone's used to all this pile of homework and everyone's accustomed to all the teachers so they know the individual quirks and what each teacher wants. Like, yesterday, Mr Byle assigned a history paper and his idea of criteria is 'the same formula we always use, class'." she confided.
"And you were just too stubborn to ask, weren't you?" Tristan grinned. "You've got a proud streak that's going to harm you sooner or later. Byle's typical essay standard is just a 4000-6000-word paper, single-spaced in blue or black ink, with a cover page and a bibliography attached. With your name, class, and date in the header, and page numbers in the footer. Oh, and font size no larger than 14, no smaller than 11 in readable font style. You could've just asked."
"I'm not that stubborn…but thanks." Sheepishly responded Tara. "So, does he care if we get our info from the net, or books, or does it not matter? My old history teacher insisted on books only."
"Byle's pretty easy going like that, he doesn't much care. Oh, and by the by, Byle doesn't actually count the words in the paper, he never has, so as long as you write a decent amount of pages, you could be off by a few hundred words and he'd never know." Tristan told her. "But he can't stand lates. Believe me, I would know. He doesn't accept essays even one hour after the last bell rings, and only gives extensions if you talk to him about it at least five days before it's due. Normally, other teachers do the whole 20-60-0 percent thing with lates but Byle gives you an automatic zero if it's late."
Tara nodded and actually took down a few notes.
"Okay, and Dalhousie is a sucker for tears, if you cry in front of her, she'll be unable to resist bumping your mark up as much as 15 percent, or give you an extension or whatever, she's a really kind person. Feed her some sappy sob story about how you were up all night staying with your sick dog and it'll just melt her up. Of course, I highly doubt you would need to hear that, little miss perfect that you are." Tristan continued rambling.
The next fifteen minutes were filled with Tristan going through their teachers and listing out their strengths, weaknesses, tolerance levels, and how they graded work.
"Ugh, how am I going to remember all this!" Tara banged her head against the table.
"Don't worry about it, once you spend a month or so here it all melds together and it'll be like second nature. You'll be fine." Tristan reassured. "One more thing, I've mentioned Paris a few times and I know you two must share at least one class so you probably realized this already, but, the thing with Gellar is it's mind numbingly entertaining to piss her off but if you piss her off too badly she'll bring down the world on you. She's got contacts all over and you don't want to be her enemy. Don't suck up to her either, the girls who do just irritate her. Keep a balance. No matter what you do though, I'm sure she'll hate you anyways. If she feels threatened, you'll incur her wrath. Just talk to Rory about that, she knows all about Paris's wrath. Oh, and do try to attend at least one of Lucille or Vivien's parties, if you do you'll be spared being labelled a nerd, dork, insert insulting comment here. Not that you'd have to worry about that, your looks and your bark are way more than enough to stop people from messing with you."
"Lucille's an airhead and Vivien's annoying as hell, I'd rather not," Tara shook her head.
"These parties are huge, it's not like you'd even have to speak to either of them if you went. Some social mingling might do you some good. You don't exactly emit rays of friendliness." Tristan reasoned.
"You know, this is probably our first friendly conversation." Tara said thoughtfully. "You're a perverted jerk!"
"Where did that come from?" Tristan frowned in surprise.
"It was getting too eerie," shrugged Tara, causing Tristan to explode into laughter.
"You insulted me for the sake of insulting me." He shook his head.
"Eh, a few insults here and there is good for the soul." She said.
"Like that makes any sense at all, Mary." He laughed.
"Would you stop calling me that! It's so… used, bland, unoriginal." Exclaimed Tara.
"What would you prefer me call you?" he cocked his head, grinning.
"How about by my barely two-syllable name?" Tara suggested dryly.
"That would be too boring, darling." He said.
Tara shuddered. "Never call me that again."
"Lover." He suggested.
"Ick." She winced.
"Sweetheart." Smiled he.
"I threw up a little in my mouth." She grimaced.
"Pookie." Tristan cooed.
"I might have to stab you soon." Threatened Tara.
"Tar-Tar." Smirked Tris-Tris.
"…With my very sharp fork." She glared.
"Tara cakes." Could these names be any worse?
"…In the eye." The death stare was at full force.
"My raven haired dearie." Oh, God, he had adapted a singsong voice.
"…Continually." Muttered Tara.
"Pumpkin." Would it be wrong to rip out his hair?
"…Until you bleed." She said through clenched teeth.
"Sugar momma." Tristan puckered his lips.
"What the hell!" That one caught Tara off guard.
"Oh, I think we have a winner!" Tristan exclaimed, guffawing madly at the look on her face.
"You're just plain weird." Shuddered Tara.
"That's code for 'take me now' I can sense it," Tristan joked.
"I hope your hair turns green." She shook her head.
"Would you like it better if it did, sugar momma?" he chuckled. "Come on, we've got to get back to school. The bell's going in a few minutes."
"You're a freak, Dugrey." Tara muttered. "I take it back, go back to Mary!"
"Are you going to go back to not speaking to me at all once the project is over?" Tristan questioned as the two walked.
"We're half done… thank God…" she sighed.
Tristan leaned ina bit too close for comfort and stroked Tara's jaw with his fingers."Then I'll be sure to make this last half as interesting as possible. See you later, babe."
"At least you're in a better mood than this morning. The horn dog is back." She recoiled, taking a full four steps back.
"What can I say, an hour with you just changes my world." Tristan laughed.
"Be serious for two seconds, are you really fine?" Tara asked.
"You know I'm f-i-n-e," Tristan teased.
"Bad phrasing." She groaned. "Are you okay, honestly? You really weren't acting normally today and, not that I care, but it was weird."
"Look at Mary, being all concerned. It touches me deeply." He mockingly put his hand on his chest. "Don't worry about me, babe."
"If you need someone to talk to, I'm not the best choice, but don't feel like you have to pretend, okay?" It was a surprisingly kind, generous thing for her to say, and completely uncharacteristic of her behaviour towards Tristan, but hey, it was an uncharacteristic day.
"Whatever Mary." Tristan shrugged. He puckered his lips and blew her a kiss before nodding towards the school. "Back to my fellow Chiltonites now, the King does have a few duties. See you around."
He jogged up the stairs into the school. He had to admit; her offer did sort of touch him. It was odd how nice she was being and Tristan hoped that the kindness wasn't due to her pity… If there was one thing he hated, it was being a charity case. Oh well, it wasn't as if anyone needed to know anything about his real problems anyway... But the fact that she had told him that he could talk to her made him feel just the slightest bit better. How odd that he felt he could confide in a girl he knew for less than two weeks when he was surrounded by those he knew for more than two years. As he settled into his thoughts, Tristan recalled feeling that Tara herself wasn't what she seemed. She was hiding too... could her invitation for him to open up to her also double as a plea for him to listen and let her open up to him?