Title: Nine Months.
Author: Professional Scatterbrain
Rating: PG - 13
Couple: R/T
Summary: Tristan returns to Chilton, and to the game, but Rory's not playing.
Note: Tristan left later on in Rory's first year at Chilton, so therefore the whole nine-month thing works (a little hint, it's a metaphor for the fic). After Tristan left Rory formed a fledgling friendship with Paris, Louise and Madeline, and by the time senior years rolls up there good friends, well, most of the time at least. Everything that happened with Dean and Jess happened except it happened all before senior year. At the end of the year before Rory told Jess she loved him, and he left suddenly straight afterwards.
I made Chilton darker, because I found the whole picture perfect school depicted on the show nice, yet unrealistic. I tried to model it around my High School, showing the competitiveness, the cruelty, and self delusion within my environment. I go to a girls school though, so the guy thing still might take me a while to work out. Suggestions would be nice as this is my first GG fic.
Chp 10: Power Play
"Basic flirting; the hair flick," Lorelei commented like a documentary maker watching a rare breed of animal, "The boy replies by drooling uncontrollably."
Lorelei didn't exactly like Tristan, more like she put up with him, while she hated him in silence. He had made her daughter miserable during the first time they had gone to school together. That in her book, put a irreversible mark against his name. But here, now, Lorelei watched her daughter smiling, and joking, even flirting a little, seeming happy. Lorelei hadn't seen Rory like this since before the Jess leaving drama oh so many months ago.
But Tristan wasn't the sort of guy she wanted for Rory.
He came from the same world as she did, but he, unlike Lorelei, didn't plan on leaving it. He excelled in society, in the world where power plays controlled his attention, forcing him to inhabit a life made up of tactics and games. He could become anything he wanted. That was the one thing Lorelei understood from the moment she met him. Dean and Jess were nothing compared to him, they would only achieve some mediocre life, probably marry the first girl that stayed around long enough to be asked, then live a life knowing nothing of what Tristan had right at his finger tips. Tristan could, and would, achieve anything, and Lorelei knew that how widely 'anything' applied to in his world. He could get, and have, anything he wanted. What worried Lorelei was she knew what he wanted; he wanted her daughter, and he would get her, sooner or later.
Sooner or later.
The fateful words that plagued Lorelei.
Sooner or later
"Girl flashes back of left wrist at boy. Boy attracted by sudden reflection of light." Lorelei continued, completely lost to how she was meant to act in the presented situation. She didn't know if she should burst in, stopping anything that might be happening, or wait and watch to see what Rory would do.
To watch and see just how well she knew her only daughter.
But the thing was, Lorelei was beginning to doubt just how well she knew her mini me.
Leaving her position at the window, she silently moved her way to the front door, as her only child contentedly conversed with the handsome blonde boy who was clearly charming her. Opening the always unlocked door, she meticulously tiptoed into the room, stopping suddenly as Rory leaned over, and lightly, pulled Tristan into a fleeting kiss.
One of Rory's hands lay on his neck, on his pulse, and Lorelei watched Tristan freeze for a second in the aftermath of Rory's action. Something about the way Rory's hand, lying, ever so gently, on his pulse point, was far to intimate; far to close for Lorelei, and as she struggled to breathe, she noticed that Tristan too was struggling to comprehend the same intimate action. His eyes focused on the cobalt eyed girl, straining to see her motives, but after a second, he relaxed, obviously seeing far more than Rory would have preferred.
Backing out of the house, Lorelei figured this was a good time to leave. She's didn't want to do the 'Emily barging in on the daughter kissing a boy' routine. That role was one her mother played to perfection, and Lorelei fought everyday not to slip into it, like the forgotten animals sinking into the tar pits. Painful as it was, Lorelei knew, somehow, as much as she wanted to believe otherwise, that this was Rory's choice, and Rory had to be allowed to make it by herself.
She would return home in half an hour Lorelei decided, which though sounding reasonable, seemed far easier to promise, than to actually follow through with. The thing that gave her the ability to get into her jeep and start the engine, was the fact that although she didn't trust Tristan, Lorelei did trust Rory. But that logic only applied in there rainbow and puppy tail past, and Lorelei was left wondered if she made the right choice.
She hated wondering that about Rory.
Her beautiful, puppy tail and rainbow Rory.
But she had to believe that she trusted her daughter unconditionally. She had to believe that Rory would need time to work out what the kiss meant without the help of her mother, because if Lorelei didn't, everything Emily told her about Rory would be true, and Lorelei couldn't have that.
She could never cope with that knowledge keeping her awake every night.
In the chaotic living room, Rory broke away from Tristan, his soft lips imprinted forever in her memory. His faint scent still fresh in her mind. His eyes glittered and danced in the light, but his expression was serious as he examined her, waiting for her to speak.
The air seemed charged with something was far from innocent.
Tristan's present's in her home seemed out of place, and only served to illustrate how she no longer fitted into the life her mother had made for her. She wanted him to leave, so that maybe then she could go back to the person people liked, but if he left, she felt like she'd lose the ability to be something other than what she was. She needed to know that she could be that something else. She needed it to remind her that what people saw everyday wasn't just what she was.
"Uhm . . ." Rory trailed off, suddenly uncomfortable, when only moments ago it had been the exact opposite.
His eyes took her in.
He didn't pretend to look at her in the sweet way Dean did, or the satisfied way Jess would.
He just stared at her, his eyes telling her how he'd just gotten what he spent so much time wanting. His hands were still on her back she realised. He didn't move to remove them, as if telling her he wasn't going to let her make excuses or find a simple way out of this.
Nothing with Tristan was simple.
He was anything but uncomplicated.
"Don't look at me like that." He told her, "Don't try and rationalise this into some form of denial that makes it easy."
"I kissed you." Rory stated quietly, as if to remind herself of her actions, and to remind herself that they were not only his.
He moved away from her then, but he spoke to her instead. His eyes, dark, dangerous, leading her into places she had avoided all her life. He was the person that would take her from the protected innocence's' to something she either wasn't ready for or was long over due for. His mere presents made her feel like a liar, as if she was a fraud and a fake, and that he wanted her anyway.
That he would always want her.
"I want you, and I know you feel something or you wouldn't have kissed me."
She knew then, not for the first time, but maybe to the fullest extent just how he wanted her. He wanted in ways she'd never even allowed herself to consider with her other boyfriends. He wanted her, and she was too frail and weak to his desire to withstand him. She was drawn to him, he was unstable and far from perfect. He couldn't be the pure sweet and kind, or anything that her mother wanted for her daughter. Lorelei would hate Rory for choosing Tristan, but the decision looked like it had already been made long ago.
Flashing her eyes at him angrily, she spat, "Of course I feel something! Are you stupid? Every time I see you my heart skips a beat without my authority, and I can't breathe properly, and it's all your fault."
"My fault?" Tristan questioned totally unprepared for her words.
Everything was spinning out of control around them. Tristan let it; he let himself be amused by her reaction, and darkened by how they were moving into uncharted space. He didn't try to make it easier for her. He wouldn't let her make this into something she could understand. He couldn't let her choose the easy path, which in the past, she had always done so. She was lovely and misunderstood, Tristan felt her weaken as he looked on.
He felt himself weaken too as he looked back into those cobalt eyes he had followed with interest since meeting her at sixteen. The sweet sixteen he had never managed to be. The sweet sixteen that maybe even Rory had never managed to achieve either. He knew she wanted him, and more than that, he knew how much it scared her. She didn't like being afraid, and if he didn't step carefully she would run.
"Of course it's your fault!" Rory cried nonsensically, "I don't normally act like this! You can't do this to me,"
"So you acting irrational is all because of me?" Tristan smirked assuredly, like a man who had the world at his feet, with endless options suddenly open to him. Maybe he was that man, at least according to everyone else's perceptions of him anyway.
The power shifted with his comment, and Rory wanted it back.
Leaning over, Rory closed the gap, and kissed him fervently. He replied with the same passion, breaking away a few moments later to allow her to breathe. Then, almost tenderly, Tristan slid his lips along her jawbone, then finding her lips again, he kissed her. Gently. Slowly. Leisurely. Making her light headed and dizzy as he held her in a way that neither of them were yet ready to understand. His kiss held heat and promise, his tongue gliding over her bottom lip, tasting, teasing, until she opened her mouth to him.
Breathless, the broke apart a few minutes later.
Tristan head was spinning, he still had the taste of her in his mouth it was indescribable. Almost like a lime lifesaver mixed with a gardenia . . . both sweet and sour at the same time. Her hair was ruffled, and he felt the urge to smooth in. Somehow he knew it was important not to do anything without her permission as if might scare her off.
"Maybe it's not totally your fault then . . ." she mumbled, her wide cobalt eyes hazy and glassy.
"After that, you still blame me?" Tristan joked quietly.
To him everything seemed to fragile and breakable, and while he was out of control; half out of his mind he feared that at any second he could and probably would screw it up with her. It just was new to him not being on sure footing with a girl he wanted. But then again, Rory had never been just another girl. She refused to let him put her in a category or section he could easily figure out.
But did he want to figure her out?
This time he made the first move, taking his time to slowly kiss her. Breaking away, he looked back to see her reaction but she just smiled softly this time. He took it as an approval and leaned in again this time with a little more force as she opened her mouth to allow him more access. His tongue slipped in immediately but before he could deepen it, he pulled back, not wanting to rush her.
"So I might like you." Rory told him stubbornly.
"I guess that's good enough for now." Tristan stated his eyes once again unreadable.
He couldn't describe what he felt for her as simply liking her. It sounded too diluted for him to convey what he felt. He wanted her, his want making something about his actions seem uncalculated. He wasn't being careful. In making her lose her control, he had lost his. That dangerous reaction at another time, with another girl, would have warned him, but at that moment, his responses were on mute, and he was on his own.
Only in the aftermath that was sure to follow, he'd learn the full damages of his uncalculated risk.
The corridors of Chilton seemed wide and open to Tristan as he made his way to her locker. Her, as in Rory. He didn't know what he should do around her. Theoretically, he knew the way he should go about this. He should ask her for a date. Something impressive. Expensive and romantic; that overused deal. He'd charm her mother, even though she hated him. He'd make her small borderline hick town adore him while grinding his teeth in excoriation. Then Rory would, sooner or later, be his girlfriend.
That was the way people in her would expect her to be courted.
But that seemed too run of the mill for her.
She would be out of place in that sort of arrangement, and so would he.
From his experience he'd take her to a Chilton Party. She'd be his date, and then after leaving with her, she'd be his girlfriend. She'd be accepted as part of the crowd he ran with. People would soon forget how she was a loner, and how she only had three friends at Chilton. They would accept her as one of them, knowing that he had made her into one of them.
Another bright young thing, part of the young set.
He was meant to say at this point, how she was better than that.
But he wanted her to be part of his crowd. To have her in janitors' closets between classes, to push her up against her locker, and make her moan his name while others watched on, wanting her but knowing they'd never stand a chance.
It was all about want, and he wanted her. He couldn't just have a crush on her; he couldn't take things as slowly as her mother would want. He knew that her being with him would damage her image, not in ways the Chilton students would understand, but in ways that people in Stars Hollow would hate him for.
But that wouldn't stop him.
"Spawn of Satan." She stated in greeting, surprising him out of his thoughts. Seeing that look of his she reprimanded preemptively, "Don't say Mary. Call me Rory and I'll give you a gold star."
"You know, if you're right about the spawn of Satan thing, that would make my father the devil, Magdalene my dear," he stated lazily, more interested with playing with her hair than acknowledging the truth he had spoken, even as a jest.
Looking at him, with those cobalt eyes of hers, she looked like she wanted to say something. He didn't want to deal with any of her self-righteous crap at that moment, so he leaned closer to her, placing kisses on her neck, more than pleased when she didn't push him away. But listening to his head, he stopped himself from throwing her up against her locker just like in his newly formed fantasies. In his restraint, Tristan berated himself for his control, only knowing he didn't want to embarrass her as he was sure to do if too many people started looking on. A few were already, and with a satisfied last bite on the base of her throat, he knew by the end of the day everyone would know about the new development.
Her eyes now looked dizzy to him, and she spoke in tone that parallel them, "Why can't you be normal and learn my name?"
"Cause that would take the fun out it," he leered, feeling her nerves tensing unsure whether to fall back into there routine or start a new one. It looked like she didn't know a new one had already started.
"You know, not many people could get away with calling there girlfriend a slut." She stated.
There.
It had been settled.
She was his girlfriend, and he was her boyfriend.
No need for dates, or game tactics.
They had unknowingly found a compromise.
With that one word, gossip would start, and Tristan wouldn't make one move to control it. Unlike Rory, he could influence people, making them keep their mouths shut. More than a few people were under his control from this talent. But he wanted people to know, not only that he had gotten her, but for some reason he wanted to make sure people didn't think of her as another one-night stand. She couldn't be seen as the fallen Ice Queen, with people laughing at how it had only taken the King of Chilton a few months since returning from exile to get what he wanted.
He didn't want that for her.
He couldn't understand that, nor on second evaluation, did he care to understand that.
Taking the books from her hands, he felt like he was playing a role out of his character. She notice as well, and in that sarcastic way of hers that she reserved for him alone, she stated, "Are you going to bring me coffee each morning too bible boy? Or is this all American nice guy thing only going to cover carrying my books?"
He leered at her, relieved to be dismissed from that facade, "I always suspected you'd be the type of girl that liked it rough. If I'd know good girls could be this much . . . fun I would have started this a lot sooner,"
His lewd comment struck her, making her see the discord between the role he was playing for her, and her person he was. She let him go back to who he was, mainly because she liked him more that way. She couldn't bullshit around him, it didn't mean she didn't try, all it meant was he saw through it all. He was volatile, and as she took her new place by his side she knew at any moment he could bring everything they were starting crashing down on them.
He was the sort of boy you couldn't take your eyes off for one moment.
The thing was, she didn't care to test that statement.
She, although she denied it, was more than content to watch the glittering slate eyed boy.
Chp 11: Priorities
"I don't care what you said to her," Tristan started. His tone was indifferent, and so was his stance, but that only made him more authoritative compared to now stiffly composed Giles.
"Then why the slap over the wrist?" Giles lampooned brusquely, "I didn't know you took it on yourself to educate me on manors. I thought I had that down pat."
Thank you to everyone that has reviewed this fic, I hope you enjoyed this chp.
