I officially love Jori now, so here's another little fic for them!
I've never really written in anything other than the third person before, but I'm trying out something new for this. Remember to review, even if it's just a few words!
When you first meet her, she's angry. Over the years you'll get used to her outbursts; yelling and screaming and throwing things at the door so often that people have stopped giving you breakable ornaments for Christmas and birthdays because it's guaranteed to end up smashed on the floor, the remnant of a drunken fight that turned physical. But, back then, when you're sixteen and squeaky clean, she scares you. Maybe you shouldn't have walked into her boyfriend and caused him to spill coffee on himself - and attempted to rub it over a little too enthusiastically - but you think she's overreacting a little when she pours her own ice cold cup over your head.
Of course, everyone else does too, and you're bombarded with 'she's got anger problems' and 'she's insanely jealous', but no-one tries to defend her. Even her friends - Cat, Andre - just talk about how Jade is, in the words for Cat, 'not a very nice girl'. You wonder a little about why no-one likes her, but then you hear her yell at Beck for talking to some girl in his History class and you know why. It's not just you Jade hates; it's everyone.
...
Her anger doesn't dissipate as you grow older and move upwards through the school. Now she's even angrier. JadeandBeck isn't there anymore, and there's no one left who can calm her down. You're pretty sure that, if something like the events of your first day at Hollywood Arts were to happen again, she would honestly try to kill you, and have no conscience about it. But that's just who she is, and you - maybe, kinda, sorta - find yourself admiring how she doesn't back down for anyone and always says how she feels, even though it's generally quite rude and sometimes kind of illegal. Of course, though, you aren't actually friends. Maybe you're a little nicer to each other than before, and maybe you - kinda, sorta, maybe - weren't lying when you told her that she's pretty, but you aren't friends. Friends implies that there's some kind of mutual liking between the two, and there definitely isn't that.
But then she's out on an opposite date with Beck, and then there's Jade, showing up because she's jealous - what else could it be? - but she's giving them her blessing, and Tori finds herself feeling actual like towards Jade, because this is so different of her and maybe - kinda, sorta - she is capable of not being angry.
Sometimes.
...
You actually become friends with her after Hollywood Arts. By some strange, stupid coincidence (as you told her, but you suspect something's up because you have a clear recollection of telling your whole group of friends you were applying for Juilliard when suddenly, the next day, Jade was sending off her own application for Juilliard despite saying that New York was stupid and so was Broadway, and that she destined for the big screen) you end up sharing a flat with her at university. It's kind of nice to know someone there - even if she hates you, and verbally announces it every morning - because New York is very different from LA, and you don't know how you'd survive without knowing someone, at least for the first week or so. Besides, Jade's been to the city several times previously, and she knows all the best bars and clubs that don't batter an eyelid at a just-turned-eighteen-year-old with a fake ID ordering a Vodka Martini because it's the first time she's ever tried alcohol and she saw it in a James Bond film.
School flashes by, and every day you're there you're getting better and better and even when you make a whole new group of friends and the only interaction you have during class is a smirk shared when your teacher starts talking about improv or something else that reminds you of years spent with a crazy barefoot teacher who sometimes liked to throw balls at people and drank rancid coconut milk that gave him 'visions', you're still friends. Sort of.
...
Two years in and you go to your first proper university party - why did it take you so long? - and you get absolutely shit-faced and end up throwing up in the backseat of a taxi driven by that nice Hispanic guy (the one with the mohawk) who once gave you a piece of gum after you tipped him an extra twenty dollars a few months back. Of course, despite consuming the same amount of shots as you on top of two large glasses of wine, Jade's completely sober, which means you're left to stumble in your high heels up to your shared flat because the only time she's ever kind to you is when she's drunk, and that takes a lot of alcohol. When you're inside, you don't even think to pull off the bastard shoes or your stained - though you don't know by what - jacket, you just collapse on the sofa, leaving Jade smirking in the kitchen as she rinses her mouth with mouthwash to get rid of the taste of that weird guy who looked oddly like Sinjin who tried to stick his tongue down her throat several times that evening. Then, for some reason, and you don't know why, you're calling her over, and she's walks to you slightly apprehensively. You mumble something undetectable, and she bends down to hear you, and then her face is so close to yours, and you can't help it. You kiss her.
She's - obviously - pretty taken back by this, and pulls her face off yours, but when you see her face, it's not a picture of disgust. She's looking strangely blank, and you try to say something else to her and take her hand, but your blood alcohol content is way above what it should be, and you end up passed out on the couch with your dress bunched up to your ankles and your lips tasting of Jade.
...
It takes a week for Jade to say anything to you after that incident, but when she does, it's more than you thought it would be. At first you were passing it off as you having had too much to drink but now you're wondering if you truly are attracted to her and her pale skin and too-short skirts. By that next Saturday, you've almost decided that you want to break the ice and say something to her, when you walk into the kitchen at eight-thirty in the morning in your bunny slippers to find her fully dressed and watching you. You open your mouth to say something, but then she strides over to you, pushes you against a wall - as you had seen her do to Beck once - and kiss you hard. Of course, you're not one to stop her when she's doing such wonderful things with her tongue and God, it's been a while, so you somehow end up fucking her - or, rather, she fucks you, which is exactly what happened multiple times on the breakfast bar and the dining room table - in the kitchen without some much as a second thought.
Afterwards, you don't know what to say to her, but she just smirks and acts like it's totally normal to occasionally have sex with your college roommate who also happens to be female, when you're an apparently straight female yourself with a boyfriend and no lesbian tendencies to speak of. You aren't a lesbian. You can't be. Lesbians are.. different. You don't have short hair. You aren't butch. But you can't help yourself when she pulls off your shirt that quickly and blows your mind more than any boy.
...
The phrase 'friends with benefits' describes the rest of your university life. It's completely wrong, but neither of you want to stop it, even when you start dating a lovely boy named Gethin who's taken a virginity pledge and whom you don't have the heart to that you haven't showered alone most days. He's sweet and innocent and it's his first time in America, and you take great pride in showing him around the city, even though the whole time you're thinking I had sex with her here and the walls in that bathroom are soundproof and other things that make you feel both slutty and aroused at the same time. You don't take him back to your flat, though. Of course, Jade still manages to meet him, and introduces herself as one of Tori's little high school friends which makes you blush even though it's true and there's nothing wrong with talking to someone from your teenage days. Then, later, when he's gone and you two are alone again, she's oddly quiet. Then, when you ask if something's wrong - it's not like you're going out or anything, but you've seen her naked multiple times, so it only feels necessary to see if there's a problem - she doesn't answer, only flicks on the TV and turns it onto her favourite horror channel, the one you hate so much but she has forced you to watch every Halloween for hours on end. So, you sit in silence - for how long, you don't know, but it feels like a long time when it's probably only minutes - until she says four words that make you want to laugh and cry at the same time.
"I think I'm gay."
There's not really a designated reaction for that kind of statement, and you don't know what to say for a few moments, so you sit in silence again as Penny Kingsley is viciously slaughtered by a group of hungry zombies wielding steak knives and pick-axes. But then it hits you, because this is Jade and she's just told you she's a lesbian, and you can't believe you've waited this long. You say her name, once, and she looks at you as you move over and kiss her. It's not like the first time you kissed, when you were drunk, or the other times you have since then, which have always felt dirty; like you were doing something wrong. It's actually nice. Then you break apart and you smile and she shakes her head at your reaction but she's grinning herself and you finish the movie feeling very proud of yourself.
...
Then you're graduating, but it's-all-gone-so-fast. You dress in your robes and your hat, and greet your parents, when there's a shout of your name and something small and redheaded comes running towards you and nearly knocks you over as she wraps her arms around your waist and squeezes hard. Then you look over Cat's shoulder - she's currently sobbing something like I missed you - and you see Andre, Beck, and Robbie behind her, and they're all smiling. Of course, you have to greet them, and you spend a few minutes talking about what you've all been up too, when you see Jade go to approach you from some distance and frown when she sees your companions. Cat notices you're looking at something, and then she's squealing Jade's name and running towards her old best friend with way too much excitement. Jade just looks mildly interested, and pats Cat's shoulder, before walking over to the group. Beck says hey to her, but she ignores him, and takes your hand instead.
"Didn't you want to meet my parents?" she says, eyebrow - complete with eyebrow ring - raised, smirking. The boys look confused, but Cat gets it straight away (bless her little heart, she really is actually quite intelligent, even if she did only just graduate high school). She squeals something again - something about I knew it and lesbians - and wraps her arms around both of you tightly. Then she looks up at both of you, grinning, and you can't help but smile when she asks "Can I be a bridesmaid?".
...
You continue living together in New York after university, because it feels right and Jade's landed a role on Broadway with Cat of all people. You feel happy for her, you really do; you rehearse her lines with her, listen to her sings lines over and over again until she thinks she's got them right, sit in the audience and watch every single on stage rehearsal, and attend performances every night for two weeks. You bring her flowers after performances and make out with her in her dressing room before she goes on stage for 'good luck' (she wants to have full blown sex, but she's sharing a dressing room with Cat and the poor girl's already walked in three times to find you with your hand up her best friend's bra and you don't want to mentally scar her for life) and make friends with all of her costars because Jade isn't capable of spending more than five minutes in the presence of most of them without complaining. It's all nice and very weird, but not in a good way. You don't know why, but you always imagined it would be you who made it first. Instead, it's Jade, with her incredible range and 'ability to convey hate amazingly on stage' (you didn't have the heart to tell them that Jade's always been like that, and it's just how she feels about most people).
So you arrive home late every night with her, and smile as she recounts the day's backstage events angrily because that lighting guy's pissed her off again and she received a warning for threatening him with scissors, and kiss her to cheer her up when she starts talking about how her dad said her performance was only okay, and it all feels a little surreal. Cat ends up staying over most nights too - she hates the little apartment she's meant to be living in, and started crying when Jade once threatened to disallow her overnight stays - which is slightly more irritating than surreal. You love Cat dearly, but she has a horrible habit of coming into your bedroom in the middle of the night wanting to talk when you and Jade are, er, otherwise occupied (again, she's never actually seen anything too disturbing, but she did once ask why you were in your underwear and Jade kneeling between your legs). But, you know you should feel lucky, because you've got an amazing place and an amazing girlfriend and an amazing falsely redheaded friend, and everything's nice.
...
When 21 has finished it's run, she's got an agent almost immediately, so you decide to focus on your own career. You travel around, playing gigs of every size and shape, from tiny audiences of three who ignored you for most of your song to busy cafes where people sang along when you played songs currently in the charts. It's great, actually, and you enjoy it, especially when a group of university students recognize you and request you sing an acoustic version of Freak The Freak Out (you are slightly ashamed to admit you still like the same music as your sixteen year old self) like you had with Give It Up (Cat requested that one, and Jade joined in) when they'd seen you live at a bar a few months ago. But you don't compare to her success. She's booked herself two movie roles, and another Broadway appearance, and she's the one-to-watch. It's all very sudden, especially when you come home one day to find Cat's enjoying the same success herself and has moved to LA after booking a reoccurring role on Glee: The Next Generation.
Andre shows up in New York a few weeks after Cat has left, but he's not there for Tori; no, he's there because he's got a role in the same production as Jade. You talk and you laugh and you go out for coffee together (and maybe he does look slightly awkward when you and Jade hold hands) and you realise that you've missed him a lot. Life is sweet and good and you know you should be happy.
But you aren't.
...
You and Jade fight a lot. It started out as nothing much, an argument here and there about who was meant to pick up milk and about leaving clothes on the floor of your bedroom. Then the arguments start to get more and more.. angry, and suddenly you're yelling at each other about Jade's apparent flirting with her on-screen boyfriend ("Tori, I'm a fucking lesbian. You know that. Why the hell would I want to date someone who looks like a twelve year old?") and why she's incapable of being nice to any single person she knows. You know it's stupid, but you can't help how angry she makes you feel, and she knows that. But she doesn't do anything to stop the fighting, and soon you're spending more time on the sofa than you are in your own bed (it's so cliche it hurts, but Jade kicks you out of your shared bed one night, and it was either that or the floor).
Your mutual friends stop coming to your house because it's guaranteed they'll have to sit through one of your infamous fights (they were a source of teasing once - not anymore) and your parents don't send you breakable ornaments from their travels because they know Jade will smash them at some point and they don't want thousands of dollars of precious glass being thrown at a wall in a moment of fury. Soon you realise that you have no-one left who's willing to put up with you and Jade now - not even Cat - and that only causes another fight when you mention it to her.
Jade hates lots of people.
She hates you the most.
...
The fighting reaches a peak in mid-July. The screaming matches have been going on for so long that you don't know why you're surprised when you come home one day to an empty apartment. You sit down on your old shared bed, and you can't even find the emotion to cry.
...
And just like that, your relationship goes out. Not with a bang, but a whimper.
...
It's a little ironic that the girl you hated so much before is the one you miss the most.
Yeah, so, I have a headcanon that Cat would end up playing Quinn and Rachel's child (the pretty cheerleader with the big voice) if they ever did a Degrassi-like spin-off for Glee called Glee: The Next Generation.
Reviews are lovely, as always.