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.
Chp12: Cordially invited
Glittering lights illuminated the darkness.
Pretty young things moved violently, dangerously in that bible black night.
Another party. Another place that Rory hated. Tristan connived her to come, with his silver tongue, and touches that were too calculated. Or maybe they weren't, maybe the flickers of something untranslatable was why she followed the dazzling eyed boy to every event on his social calendar.
Another party.
Combined with yet another shot of something that burned down her throat like a fencing sword
Lane and Henry were there are well, lost somewhere in the masses of people. Bumping into each other as the heavily perfumed air rushed and curled around the teenage forms, Rory felt Tristan's hand steadying her. Around them, dizzy eyed youths moved like tides as the music shifted pace, speeding up and never slowing down.
"Dance with me," he told her.
He didn't ask.
It wasn't that he was rude, or that he expected her to be at his beckoned call as she had once thought. Now she just knew he didn't like leaving himself open for rejection. A quality that could be too endearing perhaps. Or rather, too threatening probably. Over time it had become another one of his bad habits that she knew she could never change.
Change?
Was she trying to change him?
What if she liked him just the way he was?
But what if she didn't know exactly who he was?
Such a deceptively wide-eyed boy.
He swept her into his arms, pulling her into the claustrophobic masses. She clung to him, lost without him there to guide her in this world she didn't quite blend in with. She didn't fit here either, with the beautiful faces and reckless actions she just felt out of it all, like a bystander.
He kissed her in the whirl of music and all those maddening rushes as the sound around them reached a crescendo, leaving her dizzy and weak kneed. His hands rested contentedly on her body, one under her shirt on the small of her back where he traced patterns that he knew left her flustered. His other hand was on her hip, with a couple of fingers straying under the waist line of her pants, making her jump a little as they explored her skin disregarding the social situation they were in.
The air smelt like smoke, a mix of the legal and illegal. Tristan left her during the middle of the night to go have a smoke, and during that time she sat next to Henry and Lane, watching them speak in laughs and intense looks.
Doe eyed young men and girls.
They're eyes were less deceptive compared to the slate eyed boy.
Rory could easily translate Henry.
But maybe that was always easier to do at a distance.
Maybe that was easier to do when not up close, lost in the crescendo and swaying glittery forms. Figures dressed in brand names and dollar signs responded to the music. In the swirling masses, girls with ruby lips smeared there lipstick as boys with far from darling smiles wrenched them ever closer. Words were wasted away under the pounding popcorn music, and promises were abandoning for clever hands and cellophane flattery.
Every action distorted what Rory was able to see.
But maybe it was meant to be like that with only Lane and Henry meant to have 20/20 vision.
Rory wondered what would happen between the two. Henry wasn't the only one that wanted Lane. Dave, a musician. Charming and earnest. Was also in the running for Lane's affection; diligently working on charming Lane and her mother. Which one would succeed? Maybe Dave? He wanted her for what make tick; the passion she had for music and life. But Henry treated her like a lady, and he knew how her mind and life worked, knowing first hand the pressures and restrictions placed on them both.
Two very different men, yet both of them infatuated with the same doe eyed girl.
Somehow, it reminded her of Dean and Jess, but Rory knew it wasn't that same situation, only similar. Neither Dave or Henry wanted anything other than to be with Lane, and she . . . well, she, like Rory, didn't yet know what she wanted. Dean and Jess; two of her regrets perhaps. One of the dark handsome boys she managed to fuck up within such a limited time frame. The other . . . Jess . . . ran before she could get in too deep.
But neither of them were parallels to Dave or Henry.
Neither of them wanted anything other than what they chose to see.
But Henry and Dave were everything and nothings.
Never hiding anything other than the extent of their intentions.
But the time passed quicker than she would have liked it too. Her head was filled with the hum of music, her clothes tainted with smoke and the smell of beer. Tristan drank; she vividly recalled how out of character his actions seemed to her when she found out. She had always thought he wouldn't, that he wouldn't risk losing control all because of a few drinks too many. He had other less legal pastimes, choosing to blur that line occasional, when reasons, still too complex for her to understand, weighed that final straw too much on his shoulders. It was only then, only then did he allow her to witness any of his major addictions, but it was like trying to capture a fleeting second with no prelude to warn her. She wondered sometimes if he'd stop if she asked. She knew part of it would, the drugs probably, but not the drinking or smoking, they were parts of him too embedded in his habits to change just because she asked nicely.
In the crowd, Rory picked out Madeline as she stumbled outside onto the lush green grass. Heels hanging in her hands, she might have looked her age if the captain of the swim team didn't have his on her ass. Leaning her head on Lane's shoulder, Rory listened half-heartedly to their conversation, while watching the descending rumpled figure of Louise, as she strode ever so alluringly down the stairs. Behind her came a boy whose smirk didn't seem to hold as securely as he wanted it too.
Louise was more than a dangerous girl, and glittering boys were the only people that could hurt others.
On her wrist, her watch ticked over time, spitting it out from under its hands wastefully. It was getting late, even by his standards. Glancing away from her bejewelled symbol of belated wealth, she left Lane and Henry. Once again searching for the blonde haired eye boy with those slate eyes. It was only when the crowds were finally calming down, either from exhaustion, drugs, or spending too much time in dark corners and rooms, she found him. Limbs slumped, and appearing all to alluring in his state to make Rory feel anything but uncomfortable, he was with some of his friends.
They all look a little out of it as that cliché states ever so eliquently
All their glittering gold eyes black and unsettling in the artificial lighting.
Another group of beautiful faces, and cruel eyes directed at her.
They didn't like her, or maybe that wasn't it, maybe they just ignored her, knowing she'd disappear like the others. Would she? Rory wasn't sure, if she did, it would be her choice, not Tristan's, he would never be able to categorise her like that. She had learnt how easy it was to prevent that ages ago, when they were just acquaintances.
Pulling him away from the bright young things she felt his hands slip under her shirt tracing patterns she recognised from times spent in heated make out sessions in his room, and the backseats of cars. Ever so classy. Ever so more than just a make out session as all those teen novels named it. Unlike Jessica and Elizabeth in Sweet Valley High, make out sessions involved far more exciting things than all those chaste kisses, and not all girls were re-invented into virginal goddesses each new school day
Wasn't it all ever so becoming of young gentlemen and ladies?
As he slipped his hand under her bra she held back a swallow breath. Deflecting those roving fingers before the crowds of seduced and sedated teenagers could notice, she was a mess of hazy eyes and heated skin. He was swaying, all too much a vision of vogue sleep deprived beauty. He placed open mouthed kisses on her neck, whispering a combination of sweet and crude words into her ear until she pushed him away.
"You're out of it Tris," she told him more in the need to distract his ministrations than a desire to start a conversation that he would have little memory of the next morning.
"So are you," he muttered, his frame daunting hers as he trapped her against the wall, but she twisted out of his reach, not the least afraid by his actions.
Tristan prided himself on his control.
Although he could hurt her physically, he wouldn't.
That wasn't his style.
He preferred control to chaos.
But it was slipping.
With the help of the drugs he had taken, it was more than slipping, making his him far too vulnerable to her.
Vulnerable?
She was vulnerable to him.
Leading him into the cold air she looked at him, wondering what to do with him. In an hour or two, but probably three, he'd be back to normal, out of the influence he had chosen that night. But that left her those hours to kill. The old always wanted to savour time, while the youth wanted to kill it.
A couple of hours to save or spend.
She wouldn't take him to her home, Lorelei would have a fit. That was a given. It was always a choice that would set off more chain reactions than Rory wanted to start. It was out of the question to even consider taking him to the DuGrey estate, something about that scenario whispered thoughts and images of other girls just as out of it as him, all retreating into one of the many rooms to be careless and use oh so many euphemisms to describe the time they spent together the next morning. She refused to be that girl, to be so easily lost to the cycle of being used and using.
The sky was taking on a grey colour that whispered of rain and cold weather.
She felt it in her bones.
She felt it like whispers licking her consciousness as she wrenched Tristan out of the vicinity of the manor.
In the dimly lit garden she pulled him into a stumbling walk, trying to sober him up, or at least slightly more him alert. His eyes were fixed on her yet again, his hands finding there way under her shirt but even with his reactions dull and slow he managed to make her react more than she wanted to with him in this state. When his hands started working on her pants she took hold of the situation, taking it back to the PG level she wanted it to stay on.
Yanking him along, she briskly walked at he staggered and lurched onwards beside her. She kept moving until his eyes unclouded, and returned to the electric slate grey she was so enamoured with. Although his head still wasn't back in the game his appearance was enough to send him home through the backdoors. By the time she achieved this goal, it wasn't late anymore, but far too early in the morning. He almost looked normal, he almost looked fine . . . he almost looked . . . almost . . . in his right mind
As long as he didn't say a word nothing could go wrong.
Just as long as he didn't say a word.
As she removed his shoes later that night in his room, he asked her to stay in a voice that wasn't fully his own. Rory didn't reply, she wasn't ready for dealing with this. Yet, without the expected feelings of shock or fear she comprehended the reason why she was there in his room, with him, not off safe in her room with her mother waking her up in the middle of the night to talk about how her day was. It was as if she had known all a long to expect this sort of behaviour out of him. It was like she knew that was the part of the struggle she'd have to deal with if she truly wanted to be with him. She didn't like these knowing assumptions, nor did she like the fact she wanted to stay. As she pulled the covers over his form she wondered if this was what her mother warned her about as a child.
A waring that obviously had far less of an impact as Lorelei wanted.
It was only after she left his house and was safely home in her room that she hadn't considered abandoning Tristan for, she wondered why Lorelei was so afraid her daughter being with a guy that wasn't perfect.
But Rory knew the answer to this query.
She knew the reasoning behind it, even though she couldn't understand it.
Days bleed into each other, the masses of glittering parties merged into a whirlwind of colour and beautiful faces. Chilton was a spinning ride of intimidation and rules within regulations of their younger set making up the hierarchy of society. As he walked through the grand house, Tristan felt darkness wrapping around him, as if welcoming him back into the fold. He was tired of the head games, and the polite chatter his parents had forced during the dinner.
The cold shoulders.
The barbed quips.
Once again he was sighing. Once again he was another well dressed cliché. This time the poor little rich kid. What would it be next time? Footsteps echoed, but they didn't form an urban rhyme, but the deaf mans music he couldn't hear. He prepared to retreat to his room, until he heard the shrill ring of the phone. Picking it up, he heard her soft, tearful voice.
"Could I speak to Tristan please."
Rory was ever polite, and courteous.
It was part of her nature.
She had a chameleon type charm, which allowed her to fit in anywhere. From a country club glittering social event, to a Stars Hollow Winter Snow Dance she managed to seamlessly insert herself into each different situation. Well, at least superficially. But on the phone, her voice seemed too sullen, as if the darkness that clung to him somehow infected her.
"What wrong Rory?"
He could hear her pause, and take a deep breath at the other end of the line, "Something happened, and I shouldn't feel this way, I mean, I've got no right to feel sad. I just wanted to, to, to, I don't know . . ."
"You want to go somewhere?" he asked, half of him just wanted her to say yes so he could leave his house.
He knew the answer before he voiced the question.
But for some reason he still found himself needing her articulated response.
An hour later, the two met, outside the old, charred house. Silence stretched between the two. The harsh, biting wind whipped around them, getting caught in Rory's long, light brown hair, making the long strands dance in the afternoon light. The sky was blue, and it seemed out of place. Something was bothering Rory, he knew, but he didn't know what.
Some demon had a hold over her.
Yet, he wasn't going to be her knight in shinning armour. He didn't play the nice guy, nor did he play the softhearted rebel. There wear too many rough edges and angles now for him to be the same boy that stole a kiss when he was sixteen. Sitting next to her on the piano, he remembered clinically saying the right things, and losing part of his mind in her dizzy eyes.
Without a word, she handed over a card.
The card.
Made of beautiful ivory paper, with roses embossed on the front it looked benign and harmless. Printed in curvy, flowing print, Tristan finally saw what was causing the girl he had hunted and since he first called her Mary so much grief. Grief over a boy that apparently may have fallen for her doll eyes but never stayed around long enough to notice that he'd scratched the surface.
'We cordially invite you to the wedding of Dean and Lindsey'Cordially?
Ironic word usage?
Or sadistic?
Distancing herself from him, Rory's figure looked much frailer than she'd ever admit herself to be, "He's marring her, I knew they were dating, at least Lorelei told me that. Lindsey gave it to me when I got off the bus. I didn't even know it was serious between them, at first I though it was some revenge thing. The whole dating Dean thing and all that or something. But then she's practically asking me to be a braids maid, and who'll be my date to the wedding, and what colour and size I want for my dress."
"Shit."
That was about all Tristan could think to say.
He wondered what the hell the other girl was thinking.
He wondered what the hell Rory was thinking.
She was treading such a fine line.
While he chose mind numbing pursuits, she chose this; this self imposed torture.
He'd never had to deal with anything like this, and it was kind of shocking that Rory had chosen to come to him about it. He'd never been good with commitment, and the only marriages he knew about were the fucked up ones in the social circles he roamed and rotated through. Besides that he still didn't like the feeling of his girlfriend being affected by the gangly boy. In his version of a prefect world she shouldn't give a damn what happened to the dropkicks in her life. Perfect world? Rory always got attached to people, forming relationships that she shouldn't ever have been required to make. Being the one stretched, the one reaching out even when she ended up with her hand being slapped away. He should have wondered clinically at this point why he knew these facts, and why they effected him, but he didn't, couldn't for some reason that was yet unknown to him.
"I know you don't like Dean, and I know I'm not in love with him anymore, its just . . ." she trailed off, her eyes refusing to meat his.
"It hurts." Tristan finished almost uncomfortably, then with a shifting smirk, he stated defiantly, "On the record, I never hated him, I just disliked him immensely."
That managed to get a laugh out of Rory. She closed the distance between them, and he watched her body relax a little; unclenching muscles, unfolding limbs. Out of the duck and cover defence. She ran a hand through her hair, producing a hair tie out of nowhere and raking her hair into pony tail. A silence formed, but it wasn't filled with anything other than air. Finally, Rory crossed her arms over her chest, taking a small breath before speaking.
"I don't want to go, or even think about there wedding, but I know I have to go because if I don't everyone will talk about it and I'll be this bad person in there eyes, and it's not like I want to hurt Dean by not being there for him, it's just, I always sort of thought I'd be the one marring him as stupid as it sounds,"
Although she had stated the last comments calmly, she ended the ramblings dangerously close to snapping into the million pieces she feared shattering into. He wanted to take her hand, maybe touch her shoulder. It seemed like something he was meant to do. He settled for briefly patting her arm. But the gesture seemed unpractised and childlike, in self-disgust, he pulled away.
Bowing his head a little to examine the keys in his hand, Tristan found himself breaking into his irregular pattern of breathing, stating almost too simply and almost too meaninglessly, "It's not stupid,"
Her teary blue eyes looked past him not bothering to find his gaze, instead focusing in the direction of the house she had burnt down, "Did you want the white picket fence dream?"
Smirking a little, Tristan smiled the smile that didn't meet her eyes this time, "I don't have a great deal of faith in marriage Mary, but if you need the support, I'd love to come to the Bagboys big day to see you in some pink pastel bridesmaids dress."
Rory knew he avoided the question. Rewording it to the point where she no longer pursued an answer. Or answering a question with a question. She refused to repeat herself, too certain of the probability of her receiving an answer she might not want. That would only allow her to see Tristan in a different light, to allow her to be more vulnerable to him than she already was. They were dating, he was her boyfriend, she was his girlfriend, but things weren't at that stage yet. Physically they were moving fast, faster than she had before, she trusted him to take care of her in that respect, but in the other they were still taking steps instead of leaps.
"I think you only want to go to their wedding so you can were some fancy suit and pick up one of Lindsey's many friends." She quipped softly, her eyes crinkling in amusement as he approached her.
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."
At sixteen, Rory would have been shocked into silence, and probably mutter some excuse to get rid of him, but the two years that had past, gave her some confidence she lacked when she first arrived at Chilton. She effected him, and with that knowledge she took a calculated risk and advanced on him.
"Really?" she questioned; then breaching the distance that held them apart, she moved closer to him.
To close.
Close enough to smell the mix of leather, his (obviously expensive) cologne, and cigarette smoke, on his skin as she breathed the soft words just below his ear, making his knees weak, "Is that a challenge DuGrey?"
"A promise. I'm sure you'll want to take advantage of the situation. You being the ex girlfriend watching him walk down the else with another girl. Me, the dashing suitor at your side, ready to . . ." he trailed, off, breathlessly, suddenly unable to think of an ending to his sentence.
Whispering, she replied, "When I want to take advantage of the situation it wouldn't matter where we are."
Hours pasted.
The slate eyed boy, and the doll like girl returned to their respective orbits.
Returned, but once again found themselves stuck in an impasse, a limbo of space and time.
It was school came those few hours later. It was received as the first dawn rising from the darkness from that night, the night when she had told him about the wedding. The wedding that she was meant to watch with another fake smile painted on her face. But it was a new day and all those false reassuring lies Rory liked to believe in attempted to embody it. They found themselves skipping the morning's classes, and sitting on the lush green in the only blind spot the soccer field held from the prying eyes of the teaching staff. His hand was on her knee as she flung her left leg over his, and lay down, staring up into the sky.
"You talked to Lorelei?" he asked a few moments later, too allured by the partial intimacy they were sharing on the school sports lawn to think with any clarity.
"Do we ever really talk anymore?" she threw back at him, not answering his question, "We talk about things that are nice, and happy."
He wasn't meant to be having this talk with her, comforting her. It was Lorelei, and more dangerously or perhaps only superficially, it was about Dean. He wanted her to not care, to feel nothing towards the floppy haired boy, or even better, to be happy he was getting married, that would be more like it. But that wasn't how it was. Yet again he found himself unable to manage comforting her due to the fact he was so inept at it.
Playing with her light brown hair she had inherited from her father, he jokingly asked as he pulled himself up to look down at her, "I could buy you a puppy, then things would be better,"
Looking up at him, and those blue diamond eyes, she pulled his head down for a short sweet kiss, a touch the sent a bolt of warmth throughout his body. She released the back of his neck after a paralysing second where all he could do was freeze as she watched him.
She never allowed him to be a cold comfort, never would let him stay unattached.
"I think I like you a little,"
Grinning down at her, as she lay so close to him, he took her hand and placed a chaste kiss on her knuckles and mumbled, "Liar, you always were hot for me,"
"Can't you pretend to be nice?"
"I could but then I'd be boring. So, how about it, am I making an appearance as the reckless rouge of a boyfriend at bag boy's big day?"
"No, I'm not going. It's better that way. I don't want to play the role of the ex girlfriend, and make people uncomfortable. Lorelei of course doesn't agree,"
"She doesn't have too," Tristan told her in that way of his, letting her know how stupid it was to always be worried about her mothers opinions.
But he didn't have a mother like Lorelei. He didn't like her. Everyone loved Lorelei, everyone noticed her first. That was the point of it. Lorelei was a stunning creature composed of light, whirling and dancing movement, matched with ecstatic eyes. Rory was the understudy in there relationship. It was cruel to say so, but sometimes it was true.
However, it was only when she was around Tristan it didn't seem to make her so guilty when she felt it.
Next chp: Complicity
"Cheer up Bible boy, didn't anyone ever tell you to look on the bright side of life?" came Rory's dulcet voice as she stepped to his side.
Her hand straying onto his arm for just that second too long to be perceived by outsides as a platonic touch.
"I would have though Monty Python would have been too risqué for Stars Hollows," he retorted, his eyes glinted like chandeliers.
Once again I thank Belle for helping with this fic and continually listening to me with I talk about connatations and metaphors.
