Title: Nine Months.
Author: Professional Scatterbrain
Rating: R
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 11: Priorities
She started sitting with his friends sometimes.
Only sometimes.
Most of the time, it was only when Madeline or Louise was with her. It was Madeline that Rory always sat close to. Louise's priorities changed when she was with these people; maybe Rory's did as well. On a good day, when she was at the peak of her game, she'd sometime come without the protection of her friends. It was during those times she might allow Tristan to put his arm around her waist, and she would bicker with the people he surrounded himself with, not letting them get what they wanted.
Today wasn't one of those days, and she had reluctantly joined him, only conceding after Madeline, Louise and Paris joined her at the bequest of the slate eyed boy. He should have known then how she wasn't up to fighting off the consequences of the game, but he didn't, too infatuated with how much control he believed he had over his friends to see the truth.
Truth?
She spent her life as if she was flying; one moment she was soaring, the next, she was hurtling to the ground. Today was one of the days when she would hit the ground at full force. He couldn't have seen it coming, but it was during this one hour, this one lunch time, he began to understand just what it meant to be with her, and the extent to which it effected him.
In the glittering circles of bright young things, boys with sparkling teeth leered dangerously at each other. Disinterested girls, with long legs emerging from skirts that were so calculatedly short, half way between slutty and sexy, sat interlaced with the anything but darling boys. From her view point, Rory watched the latest addition slide up to the other blonde blue haired boy whom owned the same surname as Tristan. As if walking a tight rope, the girl, used the momentum to swing her hips, knowing that more than Matt's attention was focused on her. Glancing away, Rory drifted.
On days like this, it was best to fade into one of the many shades of grey.
On day like these she stayed away from people like the ones surrounding her. She saw too much of herself in them sometimes. An edge a girl like her wasn't meant to have. Lorelei gave them all names, satirising them, bringing down to her level so she could forget that she was just like them at sixteen. Maybe Lorelei still was dealing with that knowledge. Maybe. But as Rory sat, allowing the other members of the young set to fill the collected attention span with sadistic quips and meaningless words, she wondered if years later she'd be still trying to convince herself that she was different.
But on days like this she should have paid better attention to the many leering boys who watched her out of the corner of there eyes.
Should have . . . Famous last words or yet another cliché to add to the mounting pile.
"What's it like working as a maid?" Giles asked, his tone somewhat sharper than he would have normally used in Tristan's presents.
Her head snapped up, coiling to his barbed words. Large, deceptively wide blue eyes examined the other boy. Giles, although being another understudy in the game, was a boy teetering on the edge between control and chaos. By her side, Tristan, half turned away from her, joked crudely with his chosen supporting cast of beautiful faces. Distracted, he hadn't noticed what the other contender for power stated. Did Paris notice? Rory was sure Louise noticed, but her reaction was compromised. Rory knew what Giles did for Louise, and how he acted as the only person immune to using her. Rory also knew what this meant to the pretty hazel eyed girl. Madeline didn't notice, that was for sure, if she did, everyone would have had their attention focused on the two now engaged in a staring contest.
Contest . . .
A battle that made up the many wars.
Taking her time, Rory retorted with the illusion of calm, "I wouldn't expect a daddy's boy to understand. Unless that day at work experience actually had you doing something other than nailing the cute mail girl in the photocopier room."
Giles just smiled at her, showing off those perfect teeth of his. His face was relaxed, knowing that he was in his element and she was most obviously not. Home ground advantage? Or maybe a professional facing off against an amateur. Well . . . that was what he liked believing anyway. Crossing his arms over his broad chest, she was reminded of the strength he was capable of. Unlike Tristan, who made sure not to intimidate her, Giles used this supposed power to try and dominate her, telling her without words, just where her place was in this chosen society.
"I guess you're right, but there are people more suited to serving others, aren't they," he taunted.
Tristan noticed then. He would have liked to say he noticed her body tense or he felt the shift in the conversation around him, but instead it was Louise, giving him one of those looks. One of those looks that made him glance at Rory just to remind himself that he was with her, and not in the position to go after any other pretty face. Maybe that was Louise compromise; maybe that was her belated choice. A choice, which in final evaluation meant little.
She had yet to make that definitive decision, in reality it wasn't until she had to decide would finally choose what she wanted.
Meanwhile, Tristan caught Giles' eyes. The now corned boy didn't look guilty, nor did he try and look away. Giles met Tristan's intense gaze head on; another battle for power. There were too many for Rory to count as she looked on. She didn't like someone else fighting her battles, first it was her mother, then her grandparents, and now Tristan, neither of the three knew what they were doing to her.
Conversation continued around them, and slowly Giles backed down, shooting Tristan a strategically ridicules smile that attempted to smooth the ripple in there friendship. Pulling Rory closer than she would normally let him hold her in public, he gave Giles a message in his concise actions, later they would speak about what Giles did.
Later.
In the parking lot lining the perimeter of the school, the two brilliant boys met.
They were mostly alone. Mostly. Surrounded by cars from all those glossy motor sports magazine pages they were isolated. The imported metallic coloured machine stared deadly at them. Each badge embossed with the name of yet another pricy brand, represented a car bought only to showcase there family names wealth. All bought to try and give the contenders some advantage in the game. All supposedly playing a role of the competition their owners were part of.
All the younger set.
In the end, they were all bought by parents merely to illustrate there power to other members of the upper bank balance society.
The others that had surrounded the two treacherously alluring boys that lunchtime had left for classes, and if the two actually cared, it would occur to them that they'd be late for those same classes if they weren't careful.
Careful?
The word struck a discord with the situation around them. It sounded ironic when compared to what was going on between the two young men. Tristan was meant to be the dominate one, the alpha of the bright young things, with Giles as yet another understudy; another beautiful face lacking the background to get the place Tristan always held.
Yet that didn't stop Giles or his contemporaries, from trying to steal Tristan's station in there hierarchy.
"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 the 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."
Tristan smiled a smile that anyone watching would have misinterpreted, and stated in that calmly alienating tone of his, "Then I don't have to tell you not to-"
"Not to what?" Giles interjected, an interested look spreading over his face, "The Ice Bitch already got you whipped?"
Later, when Tristan looked back with the insight of time, he understood that this was a defining moment, it was when things started to change in the carefully organised hierarchy of the young set of his society. It was when he had to decide. The decision was so simple, yet the impact of either choice was far more complex. A complexity that was best left as another subject untouched and off limits. Smarter that way, simpler too.
"Don't speak to Rory if you can't play nice." He ordered in such a detach manor that left Giles in no confusion to the threat that was left unarticulated.
Many things were left unarticulated in this glittering world.
Unarticulated statements of intention filtered dangerously through the air.
Most of them would be abrasively put aside after a given time.
But none of them would be forgotten.
Wounds could be licked, but facts could never be erased from existence.
"What's with you and that girl? Why can't you just fuck her and get it over with?" Giles argued bluntly, "Why the hell are you acting like some prized boyfriend to her? She's just a frigid little teachers pet."
"Don't," was all Tristan could manage without lashing out.
Don't . . .
Another threat, but one that was articulated.
A mistake perhaps.
Another perhaps . . .
Then he left the parking lot and Giles behind. He wanted to see Rory, to feel her bend under his touch, to regain some of the control she seemed unconsciously bent on taking from him. She was in class. He knew that without needing to question the fact. Rory didn't miss classes, especially after any sort of confrontation. She liked to retreat into a world strictly built on rules and knowledge, a place where she excelled. He didn't care what had gone on with Giles and her, he just needed to see its effect. It was selfish, but he wasn't about to starting being something that he wasn't, just to get on her good side.
Good side?
She had others he liked more.
As the bell sounded, he leant up against a row of lockers, waiting for her to leave the room. A poster boy for whatever poor little rich boy cliché Lorelei would try and label him as. He knew what made Lorelei snarl like a guard boy at him. It wasn't that he was like the absentee father Rory half idolised and half tried to please. It was the fact he was like she used to be. Dangerous. Too bright and beautiful . . . and cruel. Her laughing eyes were once meanly mocking. But Tristan wasn't her, as much as she believed otherwise, and leaning predatorily against the cool metal, he waited for Lorelei's beloved daughter. She was the last out of the room, with a flushed face it looked like she'd just got another grade she didn't considered good enough.
Nothing she did seemed to be 'good enough' for her, he noticed dogmatically.
"I would've thought you'd look happier to see me," he quipped joining her side, smirking as she jumped a little in surprise, but like always, she covered it before anyone else could notice.
But he noticed.
A dangerous skill to have.
"I'd be happier if you were nicer to me," she told him callously, not knowing the irony in her words.
"I try," he replied, but she hadn't been listening.
The halls were beginning to empty, just the way Tristan wanted them too. Rory noticed as well, her eyes questioning him to what he was doing. She didn't make any attempt to leave. Maybe she thought something was going to happen that she should wait around for, or maybe she just was more easily influenced by him on that particular day.
Then he was kissing her.
Soft touches never came, as if he skipped over that part, in his impatient manor of his. Her hands raked through his hair; her books had dropped to the ground long ago. He pushed her up against the banister that was donated by some famous writer or politician. If either of them were thinking clearly they would have noticed the close proximity to the main office which held the principal and all his minions.
It wasn't long before they were caught.
Tristan didn't mind, he was used to it.
But she wasn't.
They were given a lecture. Tristan got off light. Rory didn't. It was her that the formidable headmaster asked to stay back. In that cold office she shivered, more out of apprehension than fear. The leather of the armchairs stuck to her thighs, and she wished she could stop blushing in embarrassment. Tristan was good at this stuff, but he was gone, and it was just the two of them left. The headmaster with his dead eyes, and her, the girl with the fate he could decide merely with a stroke of his pen.
"When you transferred here, I worried whether you would manage," He started in that tone that made her want to sob. He drained the oxygen out of the room, making her feel suffocated and light headed. He then continued, examining her response, waiting for some signal, some sign, "That you wouldn't be able to catch up with the other students."
She wondered if he did care. He spent each day in an ivory castle so far detached from the students he was meant to govern. He didn't see anything. He was out of touch; an out dated relic from a time where authority figures were still respected.
"Don't give people a chance to say you don't belong here." He told her with that look in his eyes that said only one thing, give another piece of anecdotal advice. Everyone Rory had met wanted to teach her something, and at that moment, Rory knew they didn't have anything worth teaching her. That he, didn't have anything worth teaching to her.
"Like they don't say it already," She retorted, crossing her arms over her chest defensively.
"Just remember it's me who decides these things, not them." He replied, reforming his position of power and authority over her.
Over her?
A hint of recklessness came over her. It was happening more and more often she noticed. Maybe it was Tristan, he always seemed to try and rub off on her. Or maybe it wasn't, unlike every other person in her life, Tristan had no desire to mold her into something, or to try yet again to improve her. He seemed to like her just as she was, even with the faults she should have fixed long ago.
"I didn't get expelled last time I was in this office, why should I be worried now?" she challenged, with those cobalt eyes dancing defiantly.
Daring him.
Double daring him.
Principal Charleston looked for a second as if he balked, but he recovered seamlessly, "I hope you've got your priorities in order Ms Gilmore."
Looking in those black blue eyes, she chided in that mockingly innocent voice of hers, "Why should I bother? Someone else is always happy to do it for me."
Chp12: Cordially invited
Leering at her, Rory felt a blush rise to her cheeks, and with a certain touch he'd learnt to use well, he said, "Girls are always easy targets at Weddings. I could even get you to open your dimpled knees given time."
Sorry about the extended absence. Family stuff. But once again thanks for the reviews, and I hope you like this chp.
I'd like to dedicate this chp to Belle, as a thank you.
