Coffee and Cigarette's
"Cat? What are you doing here, you hate coffee?"
Beck Oliver, dumbfounded at the incredibly rare sight of the shortest (no, more so the tiniest) female member in his small group of tight knit friends, at the counter of a coffee shop, stopped short and grinned a smidgen. It was 7:15 at night, and he had a good twenty minutes before he was due at Jade's to give her, her requested caffeine beverage so she wasn't in such a sour mood while they spent their Saturday night awake until they could no longer bare to move a muscle from exhaustion. He supposed it was a good thing he had bumped into a friend, considering he wasn't always one who desired going to anything early – no matter if he was meeting with his beloved girlfriend or not – such as going into school and having nothing to do but wander the halls until the first class bell rang.
The five foot girl, with a teal azure knit beanie covering a majority of crimson pigmented, straight fringe (it had gotten longer over time, and dark as well) turned around in surprise, eyebrows shot up to her hairline. As she recognized him, which only took short of a second, a familiar smile broke out upon her features, displaying the single dimple on the right side of her cheek. "Oh, hey there Beck!"
"Hey," he chuckled, and with his gloved hands stuffed in his pockets he wandered over to her, feeling abnormally tall when her shoulder just barely brushed his bicep, "so, whatcha doin' here? You said you didn't like coffee" he repeated.
"Oh, it's not that I don't like coffee because I don't, not like anything!" She giggled, subtly placing a hand over her mouth and slim shoulders rising a bit, "because not liking stuff is mean and I'm not mean!"
"Jade dislikes a lot of stuff, yet you're her best friend," Beck commented with a small grin, staring down at her as she chewed on her lower lip and contemplated her answer. It did not take her long; however, he chose the time to observe her. Cat was by no doubt beautiful (although he never thought of her like that, all things considered), proportioned in every way beneficial, no more than 90 pounds and fair skin just a few shades darker than his girlfriends. But, she was tiny. And that meant, it was increasingly hard for her to defend herself if possible, against anything that may want to put her in harm's way. That alone angered him enough as it was, all in all he strongly considered her as his younger sister – and as all brothers would do, beside annoy their sister's to no end; he felt it his duty to protect her, alongside Jade.
She was also bilingual; fluent in both Russian and English. And in his opinion, that was pretty freaking awesome.
"Well yeah she does, but she's just misunderstood silly! She's not mean!" Cat said with a firm nod, and turned back to the counter, where a young male around their age, possibly older, approached. He was a lean boy, with gauges far too large for his ears and piercings littering his face in every horrible aspect. Tattoos were scattered, pointless marks upon the body, but nevertheless he didn't appear to be as edgy as one may suppose. After all, he reminded himself, you should never judge a book by its cover.
"Here you go, Valentine" He said as he slid a small black box across the counter and she, with eager hands, quickly snatched it up with a gleeful squeal. "That'll be $8.50."
"What?" She asked him, mouth agape in a silent gasp, "but there were only 6 dollars yesterday!"
Beck took the time to lean over and glance at what they were. Camel Crush Blue cigarettes. His eyebrows shot up, face marred in a surprised expression – well, he surely wasn't expecting this. Albeit, he did vaguely remember her smelling of smoke once, regardless of the perfume that she had sprayed upon herself and the coffee shop did sell the potentially deadly drugs.
"I got this," he interrupted, fishing out a twenty from his wallet and slipping it over the counter, "and get me a medium coffee, make it black with two sugars." The young male nodded promptly, took the money off of the marble platform and leaving the pair of friends to themselves.
"Thank you, thank you, and thank you!" Cat squealed as she bounced upon her heels, jumping up and wringing her arms loosely over his neck. In order to stabilize her so she did not fall, nor he did not topple over, he embraced her in return with a short laugh, picking her off of the ground as he had seen Andre do plenty of times when the duo hugged, by her waist. He placed her down carefully, running a hand through smooth ebony hair with a smirk still plastered upon her face.
"Whoa, relax," Beck said, laughing and patting her lightly on the back, "it's no problemo. But, I got to ask…did you walk here all by yourself? Or did you drive; because I didn't see your car?"
"Oh I walked here, I mean, Frankie took my car to go visit my uncle and uncle, and my daddy," he smiled at her choice of words, "couldn't drive me here because he doesn't know I smoke or anything, so I walked! Hehe"
"Cat" he grumbled under his breath, taking his coffee and thanking the man as it was pushed over the counter, the two pair of friends beginning to walk toward the entrance of Hollywood's very own Café, him fishing his car keys from his back pocket whilst simultaneously attempting to hold the door open. Suave Beck no more, he supposed in a quick moment of the vulnerability of being a gentleman. "It's dark outside, you shouldn't be walking home, or anywhere by yourself. There are a lot of sick perverts out there that would…um, want to do bad things to you – and well, you're tiny, kid, you can't defend yourself."
"Why would someone want to do bad things to me?" She gasped; the naivety clear in her voice, and sounding rather childlike and frightened. "I didn't do anything to them! Or…or did I?"
"No, no you didn't do anything wrong!" He shook his head, slightly bewildered. Talking to her about serious situations was as if he was explaining this to his nonexistent child; but he was more than sure that his redheaded friend already knew about what he was about to enlighten her with – all things considered, she was a lot more intelligent than the rest gave her credit for.
"Oh, good! I was a little worried there for a second!" She breathed with a shake of her head and a giggle, plucking a cigarette gently from her freshly opened pack and looking up at him. "I guess I'll see you on Monday! After Sunday!"
She started to walk away.
Hell no.
"You really think I'm going to let you walk home after what I just said?" Beck inquired incredulously as he grabbed her by the elbow and spun her back around; she stumbled a bit on her feet, but was able to catch her balance again rather quickly. "No way am I letting you wander off to the valley – some sick guy could be just wandering around looking for a girl to fill up his needs. I'll give you a lift home, it's not a problem."
"Becky," she whined with a pout, glossy lip jutted outward, "you boys are way too protective over me,"
"It's because you're small and we don't want you getting hurt – it's for your own good." He explained with a exasperated sigh, sounding much like a broken record. "Now come on, I got another ten minutes before I need to get to Jades, and her coffee is getting cold." He said, and surprisingly enough, the tiny girl hopped in the passenger's side of his truck and closed the door gently behind her. She looked over, blunt propped between her lips, as if asking for permission. He cranked open the window, and gave her a grin of approval – it wasn't like he disliked her smoking; after all, it was something he frequently done himself in the past, although forced to quit by the rules of his parents discovering his dirty little secret.
"Jade hates it when her coffee's cold," she giggled, exhaling exhaust out of his window.
"More than anything, beside Tori." He chuckled along with her, glancing over for a split second before averting his eyes back to the road. It was a near five minutes to get to Cat's house by car, and a 10/15 minute walk; he was glad that he was here to prevent her from walking back. "So, what made you decide on starting to smoke?"
"Well I started only a couple weeks ago!" Cat answered, leaning back into his leather seat, pin straight crimson hair slightly blowing in the fatigue breeze. "I knew you did it and so does Frankie and Jade-" when did she not smoke? "- and I always felt kind of pressured to start. But then it just kind of got really stressful at home and everything…and well, Jadey told me that it relieves stress and she was right! So I took one from my brother and…voila! It just kind of kept on going from there."
"Stressful at home? What's going on over at the Valentine's?"
"Daddy lost his job and he's having a really hard time finding a new one," she frowned, taking another drag, "and he's resorted to alcohol and pills and mom isn't too happy and they've been fighting. A lot. I can't take it sometimes so I just leave. And daddy says some things when he's drunk…"
"Whatever he says Cat, you don't believe him right?" He questioned tensely, his knuckles tightening around the steering wheel as he turned down her road, her house just in his view. This was the first time he was ever hearing of this.
She never answered him.
"Good Lord; he's just saying everything he says to you because he needs someone besides your mom and maybe your brother to take his anger out on. You know, Jade's like that – she says things she doesn't mean when she's wazzed off." Said Beck as he pulled up just outside of her front door; lights illuminated the small house before him, and it was a weird thought that he had known where she lived yet, out of their three year friendship, he had not been inside of her house once. Now he wasn't so sure that he wanted too, considering the things she was telling him.
"He says I'm worthless sometimes," she murmured, fiddling with her fingers and the cigarette long gone and chucked outside of the window whilst he was driving. "and a psycho, and I talk too much and I'm fat and ugly and –"
"Don't you dare believe a word that bastard says," Beck growled, ignoring her gasp at his violent choice of wording and cusses, something she, on rare occasion, ever did. "Because everything is a filthy lie."
Cat hopped out of the car, cigarette pack welted deep within her skinny jeans pockets, and gave him a forced smile. "Thanks for the ride, Becky."
"If you need anything, just let me know. I'll always be there fo-"
And she was gone before he could even finish.
He shook his head and sped off down the road moments later.
Caterina Valentine was a mystery, he supposed; and in a way, she and Jade were more alike than one may think.
They were both misunderstood.
I honestly don't know what this is.
Obviously a Beck/Cat friendship story yeah, because I've been reading a lot of them lately…but still. It's pointless and it came out of nowhere and I was half considering just keeping this in my scrap folder.
I mean, I've had such a major writer's block so this was just something to help me get over it I guess; and it must have something to do with me not smoking (and I don't think writing about them is helping much, but oh well!) in such a long time – because I feel so stressed that I'm nauseous and I'm not focusing in school. If you're a reader of one of my other stories you'll know what I'm talking about and I'm really sorry for not updating "Catastrophic" or "Of Pianos and Cupcakes" but I promise once I overcome this stupid blockade in my parade (hehe) they'll be updated as soon as possible. If you're looking for more from me, story wise, I'll probably be posting another multi chap story soon that I have completed, but I'm still kind of working on it. Tweaks and stuff.
And if you read neither of those stories than I just wasted one minute of your precise lifetime. So, I apologize.
*This takes place right after IParty With Victorious*
Well, anyway, I hope you liked it and please leave a review with your thoughts (: I'd really appreciate some right about now!