Disclaimer: Ah, still nothing's mine. Lyrics used in this chapter belong to Benjamin Francis Leftwich's 'Shine'.

A/N: You can find visual backup for Adverse Events on tumblr now :) Look for zorokoch or Adverse Events, you should be able to find it.

A Tristan/Paris chapter.

Contains some non-explicit M for Tristan mouthing off.

'I'm the one who has got your back

Now turn around and don't be sad'

She was wearing the halter top dress she'd bought when she'd dragged him into the mall to get him out of his funk.

'How do I look?'

He busied himself flipping the channels, skipping from one sports channel to another.

'Good.' He cleared his throat and shrugged, his eyes still on the TV. 'You look good.'

'I shouldn't have gone for this dress,' Paris groaned. 'It's too classy. I need to look available. Do I look available?'

'What?'

'I need to look like a chick in a bar, not like my super amazing jaw-dropping self. Do you get it? I need to look like a two dimensional willing lightweight if I'm gonna get laid tonight.'

Tristan turned his head and gave her a look.

'Put your hair down.'

'What?'

'Wear it down, it's gonna look less sophisticated and more inviting. You know, the I'm smoking hot and like to have a good time vibe.'

She stopped taking hair pins off and gave him a look, her eyes hard on him. At some point he fidgeted uncomfortably under her long stare down.

'What?'

She regarded him silently for another minute, then shook her head and gave him a brief smile.

'Nothing. Sorry.'

He had been, was being serious. Tristan Dugray was giving her honest advice how to get laid. He was enabling her going out with another man and making the most of it in terms of a hot date. Tristan Dugray was either sick and twisted out of his mind, OR he was really telling her the truth when he said he wanted her to have what she needed and she deserved to start dating again. She was free to date - any guy she wanted. Only not him. That's why he was willing to stay with Josh and Aiden while she was out with Matt Henderson. Because she was free to move on. Only not with him.

Tristan narrowed his eyes. By now, he had learned to read her.

'You don't want a one-night stand with me, Paris.'

'Was it gonna be so bad?' she asked, her eyes sad, mouth a little pouty.

'For once, you'll have to believe my moral compass,' Tristan shrugged with a sour smile.

Paris chuckled dryly.

'Riiight.'

Tristan let out a slow sigh, raking a hand through his hair. He licked a lip, inwardly debating if he wanted to get into this particular conversation. Hell no. But they were already in deep. There was no getting out dry from the water so be it.

'Imagine a chick with a flimsy dress. Imagine my Audi stopping in front of her apartment building to pick her up. I drive somewhere out of the city, somewhere with a view but secluded enough so nobody would come around. I can't take her home because Aiden is there doing homework. So I stop the car, pull the handbrake and we say a couple of sentences, mundane stuff like what was your day like and are you hungry because I could've dropped by a daily. She says nah - she's okay, had a bite during lunch break. And then I lean in and kiss her. It's just probing, tasting if she's as sweet as I think, as I hope she is. It's meant to cease the meaningless conversation, to search for something more exciting than what we've been doing so far. Soon I'm full tongue in her mouth, because we both know why we're in my car on a secluded hill.'

Paris folded her arms before her chest.

'Is this your sick variation of phone sex?'

Tristan let the slightest smile graze his lips but ignored her comment.

'She climbs into my lap and before you say debauchery she's onto my zipper and next thing I know she's sucking me off. Soon she's back into my lap and I'm fucking her into oblivion. It's quick and probably a little clumsy due to the fact that we don't really know each other and have no idea what each of us actually likes. It's just a stolen moment and we try to make the most of it. And it means absolutely nothing. After we're finished, I drive her back with the promise that we should meet again some time, maybe have a drink, both of us knowing we won't because we're not gonna surpass the awkwardness factor. Irony is, maybe we could make small talk and have a good enough time having drinks. We will never know. Eager to end the awkward silence, she gets off my car, adjusting her dress as climbs the stairs to her apartment where she's gonna watch some chick flick with her roommate, discussing the size of my dick or whatever, and I'm driving back to my son.'

Tristan rubbed his palms against his face warily.

'You don't wanna feel the way that nameless chick does. I don't wanna be the guy who makes you feel that way.'

His look was somewhere between condescending and pleading. Please tell me you understand.

'Only I'm not a nameless chick,' Paris said lifting her chin, her eyes set on his without as much as a flinch. 'I'm Paris Geller, the woman who saved your leg and who is gonna blow your mind. We would bicker and joke and then bicker some more, and then recreate some pleasurable rubbing of epidermis. I could pull off walking around in nothing but one of your ridiculous cartoon character T-shirts and let you make me triple espresso for breakfast. However, if you're done negotiating not hitting the sack with me, I'm gonna go and try to find someone who's not finding the idea so terrifying.'

'Don't,' Tristan said exasperatedly. She looked up, her eyes hopeful.

'Don't be bitter. Don't turn this into something it isn't.'

Don't make it chase and catch. Because I'm not gonna chase.

'This isn't about me,' he insisted, plea evident in his voice.

Please understand why I'm doing this.

She made a few steps so that she was standing right before him, her eyes meeting him square.

'I'll wish he was you,' she said quietly, aiming at him, a merciless shooter sniping. By the way his face strained, she knew she had scored. 'Bye, Tristan.'

She walked out, the click-clack of her heels dying out as she entered the elevator.

Sometimes nothing went according to plan. And sometimes you didn't have a clue as to what the plan should be. Sometimes you just had nothing figured out.

Tristan Dugray had long-established habits. And he hadn't felt bad about the way he handled this particular side of his life. That was, until recently. Because recently, he had everything upside down, and he was losing most of his answers. He had never regretted welcoming open opportunities and then moving on with his life. But tonight he was doing his best to keep something from breaking and felt like he kept failing. He was trying to set borders, shelter what he wanted to keep safe. But she, being herself, kept stomping all over his stipulations. Didn't she see why they were a bad idea? Her with him hitting it off was such a short expiry date story. Damn, why was she so stubborn and refused to see the obvious? She was looking to prove a point and she was getting cruel in doing so. Sometimes you had everything figured out only to find out you didn't know a fucking thing.

'Don't do this again,' he said in uncharacteristically somber voice as she entered the living room hours later. It was still dark outside, an early winter morning in New York.

At the sound of his voice, Paris paused at the doorway, seemingly surprised he was up at this hour. She blinked in the semi-darkness to make his outline. He was sitting on the sofa where she'd left him hours earlier. She put the heels she'd been carrying in her hand down on the floor.

'What?'

'Hurting me on purpose. Don't do it.'

He had stayed up, waiting. A small part of her elated at the thought that dark jealousy had been tearing him apart. Another part of her had the decency to feel ashamed of the way she had treated him earlier, like he was some kind of asshat who had violated their relationship or something. Damn, she had treated him as if he were cheating on her or something. If anyone was being aggressive, it was her, not him. But she was like this, she attacked when she felt a threat.

Don't hurt me on purpose. Just don't act bitchy and we'll be okay. He had said that about two years ago, when they had their first full blown fight. He had this one request and she stomped all over it. But hell with caution, she wanted him to tell her why she wasn't enough, why he kept turning away from her.

'Well,' she folded her arms before her chest defiantly, 'you're accidentally doing it all the time by not reciprocating the amount of care. It's pretty hurtful too.'

He shook his head with a mirthless smile.

'You don't think I don't care about you, you just want to get things your way.'

'Maybe I do, so what?'

'So...' he made a gesture with his hand 'So, plenty.'

'What does it matter to you anyway?'

'You can't be serious.'

She kept his look, her eyes bright with a stubborn glint. Why aren't you jealous? How can you not be? You were at home taking care of my son while I spent the night with another man, would it kill you to be at least a bit jealous?

'You're unbelievable,' he rose a finger and then rubbed his jaw, shaking his head. 'Fucking unbelievable.'

'You're so afraid of getting close to something real, you're stuck in a stance and won't move in fear you might hurt someone or get hurt. Well guess what Dugray, life is hurtful and unfair so you better man up and get this pretty boy's heart to toughen.'

'Stop pushing me.'

'Well that's what I do, Tristan, I push people. You're either in or you're out, you have to choose.'

Why are your plain bimbos granted your male attention and I am the designated best friend? Why? Why won't you choose me?

'I have chosen, you just don't like the repercussions of it.'

'Bullshit.'

'I mean it, Paris - enough.'

'Tell me you don't feel anything beyond brotherly love to me and I'll leave you alone. Look me in the eye and tell me all you see is a friend.'

'I said, THAT'S ENOUGH!' he rose his voice, cracking at the end. It came out so worn out and desperate, Paris was left open-mouthed. He had forgotten he had to whisper, risking waking up the boys, he looked disheveled and underslept. And honest. He looked absolutely honest. She had driven him into a state of losing control. But he was still not bleeding out truths she had anticipated.

He did mean it. All of it. He wasn't stalling until he figured out what he wanted. He knew what he wanted and it just wasn't a relationship. He also meant it when he said she should stop pushing him. He might be easy-going all right, but he wasn't gonna be pushed around. Not by her, not by anyone. She still remembered the look in Beatrice Shefield's eyes as she walked away after Jess' surgery. It was the look of a woman who'd overstepped a line and couldn't cross it back once she found herself on the other side. Shefield had tried to push Tristan too hard and she had lost him, irrevocably. He wasn't letting her back in.

Tristan ran both hands through his hair and paced, his limp still lingering after taking the first cast off and replacing it for a removable boot cast a couple of days ago. He was doing lots of physiotherapy but it obviously still hurt to move around. He looked like a caged animal, trying to find space to breathe. He went towards the balcony door and went out on the balcony, shaking his head while muttering a couple of expletives. He looked... flustered. And angry. Paris wasn't the only one who was surprised by his outburst.

She was left alone in the living room, the place suddenly feeling impossibly quiet.

Okay, so she could be infuriating when she stomped her foot on it. So what? Paris sent a look towards the balcony. Oh, jeepers.

'Fine,' she mumbled as she stood beside him looking ahead at he city that was slowly waking from its slumber. There was no sun. Only clouds and the lifting dusk.

'I might have been out of line.'

He turned to give her a stern look.

'Why do you have to be so damn stubborn?' he asked.

She looked up at him, her breath hitching. The tone of his voice, the emotion that stood behind it, they were so familiar. They had been there in Doyle's eyes when said stubbornness had ended her marriage. When she had pushed him too hard, she had pushed him out effectively. Because, like anything else, when pushed to their limit, people gave, they broke.

Paris opened her mouth and then closed it, waiting for the feeling of the air being knocked out of her lungs to subside.

Paris Geller was generally content with who she was. Or, more exactly, the total sum of who she was. Like paying a high price for something you considered valuable enough. Like trading pleasantries for effectiveness. She was harsh, stubborn and single minded. She was aware of that, mind you. She had her reasons for being like that, had analyzed them over years and years of therapy. But what gave her a reason to still push forward so hard was the belief that being the person she was, she gave her son a stable environment. A world where borders were within reach. She had grown up in a ghost of a family where no one cared to create boundaries for her. Ever since she was a kid, Paris Geller was on an endless quest for limits. She had created an uncountable number of rules and regulations in stride, little cornerstones to help that quest, to guide her and keep her safe. She never wanted for Josh to feel like this, like he was floating anchorless with no one giving the time of day to think about what the future held for him. It wasn't a child's business to draw the line between good and bad, to define black from white. It was what parents were supposed to do for you - draw the line, give you a starting point so that you knew at least where your start began. She had never had that. She had always had to define her own limits, abandoned in a limitless world where no one really cared enough to carry the responsibility for her. She had dug a tunnel out of that blur to create a whole system of black and white, to help her define what was what. So yeah, she was extreme. But that kept her sane. Maybe these times of insecurity were over now. She was thirty years old, a grown up woman, a mother. Maybe she had already managed to define the terms of her own life and could relax for a moment. Maybe that was okay now. But all she ever knew was the fight for drawing lines and letting go of that habit now seemed impossibly overdue.

She let out a sigh. Braced herself.

'Are you gonna let me buy you a coffee?' she asked, her voice unrecognizably timid. The only person who could draw the vulnerability out of her to such a great extent was a former high-school playboy with man-slut tendencies and a heart of gold. She could probably do worse than that. She just couldn't think of any good examples right now.

There was a fact about Paris Geller. She was terrible at saying sorry. She was like that - always pushing forward, never stepping back. And saying sorry was like taking back what you did instead of owning it. She owned her crap, dammit. Dignity had to count for something. Only this wasn't dignity. This was simple disability to say the damn words.

She was so terrified that people would keep wearing out. It was so easy for people to give up on her, to just... quit fighting through her defenses. She so wanted for someone to fight hard enough to stay. She had been so, so desperate for someone to prove to her that she was worth staying for. She had already pushed another man too far. It wasn't fair of her to victimize herself. Tristan had done nothing wrong. He had her back, had it from day one although she had doubted it for so long. And what she had done in return was punish him for not proving to her what she was dead-set on proving. The paradox was, he had. He was doing what was his best version of staying. Nothing had cost him so much effort as making his case about staying friends with her. And he was, he had been fighting for keeping her. He had done it the way he saw it. She had no right hunting him down like that. And playing blame games with him. Especially playing blame games. Stop hurting me on purpose. She did hurt him. Of course she did. He cared, had he not said that, numerous times? But she was too busy ranting about other people not fighting for her enough. Tristan had never given up on her. Tristan wasn't Doyle. Doyle had given up. She had made him. But it was time she stopped looking for someone to fill in for Doyle and prove anything on his behalf.

Doing this friendship thing Tristan's way would require compromise. Paris was an all or nothing person. With Tristan, if she agreed to his terms, she would have to settle for a helluva world of in-betweens. But, if anyone deserved that compromise, it was Tristan. He had been solid. He had been a good friend. The best. He deserved to be cut some slack and be fought for in return.

His silence had made her glance up at him apprehensively. She didn't know how long exactly they kept staring at each other, the new realizations settling in.

'I'm gonna go with slurpee, thank you.'

She didn't know why she felt like grinning. She assigned it to the relief of being let off the hook. And Tristan's own mirroring grin.

She looked ahead at the skyscraper rooftops. The sun was rising.

'I hope you find the love that's true
So the morning light can shine on you
I hope you find what you're looking for
So your heart is warm forever more'

TBC