Author: Nat

Rating: PG13

Spoilers: I’m Australian and because we’re so far behind I don’t think it applies… besides, it’s mostly AU anyways.

Pairing: Rory/Tristan

 

Standard disclaimer applies

 

A/N: First thanks of course go out to Surya and Sus for their betaing efforts. Great gals. Next thanks go out to those who are reviewing me, thanks so much… I never really cared if I got them before or not… But it really does seem to spur on the muse :) And of course constructive criticism is always welcome.

 

A little background info maybe? Jordan’s journal entries are completely random… So he could be writing about something that happened in the past or something that happened that day… It’s all mixed up, which is going to make trying to put the story into any timeline insanity. Sorry if that’s annoying. What happens is we read Jordan’s entry then we segue to Rory’s take on what was happening at the time… Which is written in the current tense. Or at least that’s my goal. I’ll more than likely screw it up many times. Which is why you’ll probably never find out why Tristan was in trouble in the first chapter (hee! You can just use your imagination for that one).

 

Anyways, hope you enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

- The Life and Times of an Unwelcome Third Wheel -

 

 

 

 

 

I once asked Rory how long she and Tristan had been together. It started a fight between them. He was so dumb about her sometimes. The gist of it was that before summer break he had asked her to go to a concert. She turned him down flat and then her ex had shown up and she ran to him and blah, blah, blah. For the first time in his life something that my brother wanted didn’t fall into his lap. It still pissed him off.

 

But luck has always been on his side.

 

Apparently her best friend won tickets for the concert from a radio station that same day and after a fight with the ex, she went to the concert.

 

Long story short, they were in the same section and stuff happened. I don’t know what they fought about. I left the room. Of course when I came back in fifteen minutes later the fight was over and they were kissing again.

 

You couldn’t walk into a room where they were alone without finding them making out. It got to be rather annoying. Then it got to be a game where I interrupted every chance I got. I was lucky to escape with minor flesh wounds. I’m pretty sure that if it weren’t for Rory, he would have scalped me.

 

What was weird though, was that I rarely saw them together at school. Occasionally I’d see them walking to class together, but they didn’t sit together during lunch, they didn’t make out before school or between classes. Which was very weird when out of school they didn’t stop touching.

 

Unless they were fighting.

 

And when they were fighting I didn’t go near him for fear of my life.

 

Occasionally we ended up at the same party, Chilton is a rather incestuous place. All the parents know each other and stuff, so if a senior has a party and he happens to have a sibling in the 8^th grade, you tend to get a lot of 8^th graders there too.

 

I’d witnessed a few of Tristan’s parties and they tended to be a little wilder when there were no younger kids there, but for some reason, the party at the Johnstone’s had quickly spiralled out of control.

 

I can’t remember why Rory wasn’t there, not that she would have been there anyways, she and Tristan had had another fight, but she had something else to do, with Lorelai maybe. Tristan was there drinking with his friends. But of course, when I needed him, I couldn’t find him anywhere.

 

It was probably around 11.30pm when I called Rory.

 

 

 

 

Rory pulled the jeep into the drive at around midnight and jammed on the parking break, angry with everyone. She’d had a bad day and wasn’t it Tristan’s responsibility to look after his younger brother? Why did she have to be the one to drive half an hour in the dark through the rain to pick him up and take him home? Where was Tristan anyway? He said he was going to this party.

 

God! He was infuriating. She should probably track his ass down too, because she knew him, and she knew he shouldn’t be driving anywhere after a party.

 

The only thing was, that after their last fight she wasn’t sure she wanted to look for him. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to see what he was doing at the party without her.

 

Rory took a deep breath and walked in through the open front door, gagging on the thick smell of weed that permeated the air. She hated Chilton parties. She started searching for Jordan in the downstairs room.

 

She hadn’t been there two minutes before Tristan found her.

 

“I thought you didn’t want to come.” He leaned insolently against the door to the small room she was in, a bottle of Corona dangling from his fingertips.

 

“I didn’t.” Her voice was tight and he knew she was pissed but he pressed his luck anyway.

 

“So why are you here then?” He put his arm across the doorway, blocking her exit.

 

“I’m here because your brother called me. I’m here because he couldn’t find you.” She could faintly smell the beer on his breath.

 

“He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.” Rory took in his tight jaw and hooded eyes. He was pissed at Jordan, but he was also hiding something from her.

 

“You really don’t want me here do you? Well not to worry, I’ll be gone as soon as I find your little brother and make sure for myself that he’s alright.” She went to move past him, but he crowded her back into the room and closed the door behind him.

 

“I want you here. I’m not the one who had a tantrum, remember? I was the one who wanted us both to come. You could have kept an eye on the precious little baby all night if you had come, but no, Miss Priss didn’t want to associate with the dregs of Chilton!”

 

“Tristan, get out of my way. Don’t start this fight again now.” Rory’s voice was quiet and Tristan knew he had gone too far. He had known that Jordan would call her and that he would get to talk to her, that’s why he’d avoided him for the past hour, but it was Rory and he just didn’t have any restraint when it came to her. Fighting the need to want to prove to her that he wasn’t as big a bastard as he came across, fighting the need to continue the argument, he lifted his back from the door and opened it.

 

“Come on. He’s upstairs.”

 

“You know where he is? Why aren’t you with him?”

 

“He’s drunk Rory, it’s not a life threatening condition.”

 

“He’s a twelve year old kid Tristan! He’s alone, in a strange house, throwing up his breakfast!”

 

“Yeah, well maybe it’ll teach him not to drink the spiked punch huh?” Tristan strode up the stairs two at a time leaving Rory to catch up behind him. He pushed open a door in the long corridor where they found Jordan passed out on the floor. “I’m impressed. I didn’t get as drunk as this until I was fifteen. Guess he’s finally-”

 

“Shut up Tristan, just shut up.”

 

Tristan smirked and leaned his ass against the vanity, his long legs crossed at the ankles in front of him, steadily drinking his beer as Rory grabbed a towel and wet it down using it to clean up the bathroom as best she could. Sitting a moaning Jordan up against the bath she flushed the toilet and looked up at Tristan.

 

She took his beer, which he let go of with a sigh before he bent and picked up Jordan.

 

“Take him to the jeep.” Rory flung the bottle into the bin and grabbed another towel before following Tristan down the stairs.

 

“If you take him home like this Dad will skin him alive.” Tristan skirted around the edge of the large room at the bottom of the stairs, holding Jordan against his chest, avoiding the majority of people.

 

“I was planning on taking him home to Stars Hollow.” Rory replied from close behind. Continuing out the door and down the drive to where he saw the jeep parked Tristan rolled his eyes. Lorelai loved Jordan where as she merely liked him. Maybe this would turn the tables a little.

 

“Good idea.”

 

Rory flung the towel across the back seat and held the door open while Tristan dumped Jordan on top of it. Rolling her eyes in aggravation she pushed Tristan out of the way and crawled onto the back seat, arranging Jordan in a more comfortable manner before slipping a seatbelt around him.

 

Tristan stood in the door and somehow managed to restrain his impulse to reach out and run his hand over her jean-clad ass that was tantalising his alcohol loaded hormones as she leaned over Jordan. And before he could move out of the way Rory had backed out of the jeep and was pressing against him. Certainly not intentionally on her part, but he held her against him once she was there. Tristan felt her sigh as his arousal made itself known to her.

 

“Ror.”

 

Pulling away, she slipped around him and pushed the door closed. Climbing into the driver’s seat she wound down the window.

 

Her expression was blank and her voice tired as she took in the slumped form beside her. “Are you coming with us or are you staying here?”

 

Tristan looked from Rory to the mansion with all its lights on, windows open, music blaring and rowdy teenagers before turning back to look at her again. Giving her a small nod he made his way around to the passenger door and climbed in as Rory started the engine.

 

 

 

 

One of the best things about Rory is that she doesn’t judge. She doesn’t yell at you when you do something as monumentally stupid as getting rotten-fall-down-pass-out-drunk at a party when you’re 12 years old.

 

But she will yell at your older brother for not watching out for you.

 

After calling Rory, I woke up the next morning dead.

 

Everything hurt, from the sound of blood rushing through my body to the light blinding me through my closed eyes.

 

I moved and dry-retched. I had nothing left in me to throw up having hurled all my insides last night.

 

Tristan was sprawled on the couch in his boxers and I was on the floor on the scabby old foam mattress that was kept around the house for emergency situations. They called it Sick Sam.

 

I was obviously not the first person who they had let die in their living room.

 

Rory came in from the kitchen with a coffee cup in one hand and a cup of water in the other.

 

She gave me the water and instructed me to sip it slowly. Then she handed me the ibuprofen.

 

At that point I decided she was an angel sent to me from wherever.

 

Then she woke up Tristan and started to yell at him. I started to wish I really was dead.

 

Who knew that Rory could be so frigging loud and vindictive?