Title: Nine Months.
Author: Professional Scatterbrain
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
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.
N.B. : I changed the time when Dean and Lindsey got married. In this fic, they got married during their (and therefore Rory's) last year of high school. This is isn't so much important, as something you need to keep in mind or else all the timing won't make sense to you. Keep it in mind.
Chp 20: Primrose path.
They returned to their roles.
Each, with varying success.
She was the Mary, the mini me, the side kick, the saving grace. She was sweet and naïve. The good girl that didn't know about that the younger set did, and would be shocked if she did. Meanwhile he was the ruler of the bright young things. He was the brightest of the young things. He smiled like a wolf and played the game better than anyone else ever could. He held all the cards and won every time.
But still, despite how expertly they rejoined the facade, they still couldn't look at each other.
Rory wouldn't speak. The words she did articulate meant nothing in the long run. She would say, smile, and act the way she should though, plaiting her hair back in French braids with blue ribbons at the ends. Paris would watch her, circling her like a guard dog on watch for possible threats. Snapping her teeth at anyone that dared approaching the doll like girl that had seamlessly become the blondes best friend.
Louise couldn't be around the brunette by herself.
Rory had been the light at the end of the tunnel almost.
But now she was only painful false hope.
So, Louise kept her distance, idly chatting about school and fashion; topics that were meaningless. Rory always expected more from Louise, something that the blonde hadn't ever encountered apart from Paris's snappy, sharp comments. Rory was . . . Rory was something that hurt to look at for the moment, so Louise kept her friend at arms length, not allowing her to comment on the game that was now back in play.
Giles.
The dark featured boy. New money, and new manors. She watched him, with disinterest, and red lip sticked boredom. But never while Rory was near by. No, that wouldn't do. Rory could always see the distinction between true disinterest, and the faux variety that Louise practised like an art around the chosen object of affection.
So Rory was kept at arms length.
Neither party said a thing about that fact though.
Paris came to Stars Hollow about a month after the break up. Along with her came Madeline and her neat raven curls. She sat cramped in the backseat, a comeuppance for the forced invitation Rory had given. Madeline wasn't part of this world, with her inquisitive, deceptively simple eyes, she was another bright young thing that would be scorned and satirised in her departure. She acted her role to perfection. She had always been better at it than anyone noticed. Not that many people cared to notice. With long legs she followed the other two accepted girls as they left the parked car and enter Luke's. Her movements harmonious and calm, as if merely bemused by the looks she was receiving.
Rory would crack sometime.
She wasn't a small town girl no matter how often she was told otherwise.
No one cared to notice that either. Without awkwardness Madeline waited, watching, observing the other brunette, not minding the discomfort of her position as an outsider. Paris smiled tightly at Lane's mother, stopping to chat outside as Rory and Madeline entered. Lorelei wasn't in attendance, and Madeline noted the guilty relief that slivered into Rory's cobalt eyes; a fleeting sign of emotions she had been encaging for the safety of herself and others.
"I don't drink coffee," Madeline found herself stating, more in order to break the silence between her and the other girl, than out of any need to inform Rory of this particular distaste. "I plan on growing the same hight as Elle MacPherson"
Someone snorted behind her. Rory turned slightly, allowing Madeline to do the same. A brown eyed boy stared at her, a snarl of the lip, and a cocky flash of teeth mocked her. Arms crossed over his chest, he was another poster boy for whatever tragedy he believed he, and he alone had suffered through. Glancing meaningfully at Rory, Madeline watched him communicate his distaste for her, the girl who in his opinion lacked enough brain cells to spark a fire upstairs.
"Sparkling insight. Witty use of appropriation too. How long did it take you to switch their names?" he quipped, his body angling towards Rory's
He wanted her.
He might get her.
But he forgot one vital thing.
The girl he charmed the first time around had changed, and was no longer the same.
Rory reached for her coffee; her movements unbalanced, as if trying to decide what to do, who to choose between, what the consequences would be. Indecisive to the end. Might be her end if she wasn't lucky. Or if she was lucky. What a pity it was. Oh those indecisive cobalt blue eyes of hers, what a mess.
She wasn't a good girl either.
"Sorry?" Madeline stated her tone innocent and tasting like bubble gum in her mouth.
Deceptive girl.
"I see Chilton is a place not only of intellect but blinding wit," he retorted dryly, as if expecting a thanks.
Overconfident boy.
Madeline wanted to find out what made him tick, or more specifically, what made Rory tick and chime when she was around him. He was the famous boy that had rejected her, the one that took months to get over, the boy that until now was just a name and a vague description only abstracted from a night of drinking in the summer holidays that preceded the start of the year. Madeline traced his form and figure with her eyes. At the end of her inspection she found herself leading him on; but as she did, she discovered Rory wasn't objecting to her treatment of the underestimating brown eyed wonder.
"I don't understand," the raven haired girl replied, her eyes wide, confused, clueless, but Rory saw the flicker of something.
Something deeper.
Something dangerous.
Something sadistic.
"I guess because my shoe size is apparently bigger than my I.Q I wouldn't, would I?" she added, finishing the conversation with a touch of brutality that boys like Jess understood, but didn't respect.
The dinner had stilled, with conversations hanging in air as they watched the ditz go down to the snapping teeth that usually were reserved for the hand that feed him. Her tone was no longer bubble gum sweet and unassuming, and with flashing, flaunting eyes, she watching him, counting her win. Adding it to the pile. He didn't laugh, but Rory did, snorting, then stopping herself, realising her mistake.
The bell over the door sounded.
Paris entered the dinner, her face flushed and lined with exertion, like a tactician after a test of there skills. Shrill and unwanted, it forced Jess to back away, fetching the bottle of pink lemonade Madeline ordered sadistically, as if to nail the point home. With surgical eyes, she didn't need to fully evaluate the scene before her to know that she had walked in on something. Meanwhile Madeline had her attention happily focused on the receding figure of the boy with the wounded pride.
Paris pulled Rory outside.
"What's going on?"
The repetition of the very words she had whispered to Tristan slapped Rory in the face as she ambled towards the gazebo in the town centre. She considered flashing her teeth; smiling, shaking off Paris's comment like it meant nothing, but couldn't go through with it. Paris would see through the thinly veiled deception, just like she always saw through the tactics and diversions Rory specialised in.
"I didn't see it coming," Rory mumbled, her eyes fixed on Madeline as she mocked and flayed Jess; for a boy that boasted of knowing better he seemed to still be falling in her carefully laid traps. "He cheated on me you know. With Summer. Fucked her for some sort of revenge."
Paris nodded. Face blank not showing even a curling wisps of emotion as she tried to get everything Rory admitted into some sort of order or flow chart of information. But it was the way Rory stated it, Tristan screwing Summer, that got to Paris. Rory stated it as though Tristan cheating on her had hurt, but it wasn't what she came back to in her mind each night when she was alone. Oh those cobalt blue eyes. What a mess. What a terrible mess. It was all about trust, and how it had been broken.
"Do you think I should have tried to work it out with him?" she asked, pleading for an answer.
Which one she wanted, she still wasn't sure.
Which one she needed, she still wasn't sure.
"I always wondered what it would take to get married," Rory stated suddenly, snapping the conversation onto a different, yet link track of thought.
Maybe she didn't want an answer.
Or maybe she just didn't want the answer Paris would give.
Paris struggled to keep up, not wanting to speak, or guide Rory in any way in fear the other girl would close off once again. Wrapping her arms around her form, as if branches were scrapping on the window panes of her bedroom window, Rory turned to face Paris, then looked away, as if seeing the questions that other girl wanted to ask.
"Dean got married seven months ago."
"To Lindsey right," Paris stated not questioned, her tone steady, almost tranquil, not forcing or foreseeing.
But she felt it, felt where it was leading.
"Have you talked to him lately?"
The context of 'lately' was obvious. Had she spoken to the brown eyed boy since she departed from the blonde boy? Tristan and Dean had never been people that could be friends, even without the connection of the cobalt eyed girl. Dean was protective; he was idealistic, full of sugar and spice. Tristan didn't fulfil any of these criteria's. Jaded, knowing, made up of uncountable myriads of sides and properties, he treated Rory not as something to be protected, or kept. Simply, he treated her how she should be treated, and she reappropriated the gesture. But, he had failed like Dean had failed.
Just like Rory could fail.
"I've seen him around," she replied, almost illusively, yet somehow she was honest, leaving Paris to believe Rory had still had to admit the meaning of Dean and his reappearance in her life to herself.
"Be careful with him," Paris warned, suddenly afraid.
"With which one?" Rory retorted.
Paris was left unbalanced by her friends reply. But before she had the chance to question it and Rory, Madeline reached the two. Bounding and bouncing across the greens, she was light and darling, with huge eyes sweeping the streets, picking on people only long enough for them to feel euphoric, them moving on. Dropping them likes tones into a river. Rory, like Paris watched the approaching girl, trying to calculated the reasons and rhymes she inhabited and exhibited.
But, Madeline couldn't be explained.
She could never be explained, because, she too was another version of the same girl.
A version Rory and Paris denied being related to.
But as her eyes gleamed decadently, infatuating, it was impossible to pretend she, like them, were just the sum of what people saw.
Such pretty slate eyes.
Tristan traced his hands over the marble floor. The shifting smoke lines of black and white under his fingertips fell into and out of each other. The stone was ice against his touch, and loud music pounded through the room. It was late, and he didn't particular want, or feel the need for sleep. Slumbering nights seemed wastefully and he itched for activity.
His face was sharp, high cheek bones and shattering slate eyes made him into his family name.
His older brother was leaving in a few days. Idly he entertained the idea of Daniel's wife; her limbs and her skin. However it didn't last long. Wasn't even worth entertaining. He's friends; in particular his cousin Matt had spent the last few days celebrating his 'win'. Even Giles and his new money had joined in on the fun. He didn't really turn up to swim practice anymore. The season was over and apart from his wins the team had come up short. The parents committee was displeased and Tristan doubted Coach Andrews would be returning for the following school year.
What fun had been had.
It was a slippery slope.
Downwards he slipped, back into disinterest and inattentiveness.
People bored him, but they were easy to charm. Very easy. He was good at making them like him. He was good at making them do things he wanted. His friends laughed a lot not, and made crude jokes. That was easy too. There was no danger or risk in joining in. Sometimes he seduced girls; in the weeks that had passed since he and Rory had broken up he seduced a couple of girls. But that had always been easy.
He didn't feel guilt.
He didn't look at her.
But he didn't think about that. He didn't really think at all. He was pretty much gone anyway. The school year was almost over and he was already signed up to the family university. His name in black ink and his father's check almost ready to be sent over to pay for the tuition fees. His grandfather had been pleased. Matt was looking to move up the rankings, and he hadn't kept his mouth shut for long. Not that it mattered. He didn't even think about it. There wasn't anything to think about. Their never had been. His mind was focused on other matters. The family name had to be upheld, and the youngest son, now reformed, now fixed was the one being asked to take part in doing it.
A leggy red head smiled at Tristan from across the room as she made her way over to him. He recognised her face. New money. Or new in this crowd. The girl in question was pretty enough. She was petite and he handed her a glass of pink champagne as they reached each other. She had the body of a ballet dancer, slim yet defined. They had known each other for a couple of years, and it was easy to find a couple of topics that they could once again go over. They'd done this more than once before. But he knew her type. She was the sort of girl that hadn't spent a week without a boyfriend by her side since she was fourteen.
They were at another nameless Charity Event. This time it wasn't held by the D.A.R darlings, but their family. They'd raised a couple of million dollars easily, but it was rude for a boy like Tristan to keep count of exactly how much. The DuGrey family had always prided itself on being discrete. Tristan supposed that was one of the many lessons 'boarding school' had been meant to teach him. With glittering eyes and a wolf like smile, Tristan was everything bright young things were meant to be, but better.
"Tristan, can I steal you for a second?" she purred, her hands bridging the space between the two bodies.
"Longer if you want." He replied distractedly, all he concentrate on was how cold she left him.
Soon his hands were under her shear dress, tracing the hollows and curves form.
Within an hour it was over and he was back amongst the masses of people his Grandfather considered important enough to waste time with. He raked his hair back, and smirked as he spotted the man himself. Their matching slate eyes meet and Tristan raised his glass in salute. He was in control now, the power was going to change hands eventually; he could feel it beginning to happen. Janlan's influence was waning; blood would soon be in the water. Janlan had had his era, his golden days were on the verge of ending and when they did Tristan intended on being there. Sliding up to the older man, Tristan slipped at his glass of wine.
"Did you miss me?" Tristan quipped sarcastically in Russian to Janlan, while his mouth smiling beautifully at the pretty women that send him lingering glazes.
"Learn your place," Janlan retorted in Russian.
Tristan just smiled at his Grandfathers comment and for a second Janlan could have been forgiven for thinking the young man didn't know what had been said. Tristan only spoke Russian within the circles of his family, and in the pitiful excuses for languages lessons he took at school. But Tristan was smarter than he appeared to be, long ago learning the value of playing the dark horse role until he needed to show his true colours.
Just because you were smart didn't mean you couldn't play stupid.
An act Janlan was now certain that his grandson excelled at.
"I know my place." He smiled, his eyes wide and in that second he looked like the facade of innocence's he had learn from the one girl that he had never ruined, the one that had almost ruined him, but then it was spoiled as his smile turned into a smirk, "Do you?"
As Tristan's eyes glittered and danced dangerously, Janlan questioned if the boy ever played anything other than a wolf in sheep clothing. He was a dangerous thing. The two men with their matching slate eyes were far too alike for their own good. It was such a slippery slope wasn't it. A game of morality by numbers, and neither was certain who was winning. It seemed as though the odds were shifting though.
The gears of change were turning.
And Tristan was the one turning them.
Next Chapter: Dirt.
"Why do I feel so dirty?" Rory asked blindly, "How do I make it stop?"
Louise looked away, the other girl's words hitting too close to home, "You don't,"
Another thank you to Belle for helping me with this fic and with everything else.
R&R.
