"Properly Alive"

Mystic25

Summary: When you're best friends with someone, you notice things. For Andre, it was Tori's new boyfriend. Tandre, Bade, Cabbie.

Rating: T for situations and language.


xxxxXxxx

"Don't be so smart dear daughter, that you don't use your head."

~"David Logan"

The Road to Memphis

xxxxXxxxx


"Alright," Sikowitz climbed up on the stage of his classroom barefooted and faced his students. He noticed how the small group that seemed to remain 16 and 17 for a long time were the only ones paying attention to him. Which was about how it went every day. "Happy Friday Eve to everyone!" He spread his arms out wide and grinned.

His entire acting class groaned at his use of the expression 'Friday Eve' instead of Thursday.

But Sikowitz went on anyway. He was one of those teachers with the eccentric personalities that didn't care if he was over enthusiastic about something: "Now, I know you're all excited about your weekend plans-"

"For those of us who have them," Jade West threw out. She was wearing all black, like every day. Long sleeved mesh top, two tiered skirt black leggings, combat boots, She was slumped casually in her chair, legs crossed on the empty chair in front of her, flipping through her text messages on her Pear Phone.

"I'm going to spend the weekend with my Mamaw, wine tasting in Napa Valley," Robbie Schapiro said with a smile on his face, not noticing how people gave him looks for an activity that was supposed to be for older couples in their forties.

"Wine tasting?" Jade repeated the word like she'd swallowed a whole chunk of meat. She gave Robbie a look equal to her vocal disbelief. "Dude, that's like something old couples in their forties do when their bored after Matlock."

Beside Jade, her boyfriend Beck Oliver looked up from his own phone at Jade's slam on Robbie. Robbie was staring at Jade with a bit of an open mouthed guppy look. "Okay, that wasn't cool-"

"It's Robbie," Jade threw back, turning to Beck. "He knows that he's a nerd."

Robbie squeaked in indignation. Next to him, his newly recent girlfriend Cat Valentine, dressed in a flowly dress of all pale pink and with silver heals, leaned over and petted his thick hair. "It's alright, nerds are smart and win stuff on the internet." she fluttered her eyelashes and smiled at him with her big eyes.

"She does have a point," Andre Harris said from his seat behind Robbie. He leaned forward slapped Robbie on the shoulder and gave him a light laugh. Robbie didn't look comforted, so Andre cleared his throat and sat back in his chair.

Sikowitz cleared his throat too, loudly."If you all are done-," he swept his fingers in a circle "I was kind of in the middle of a monologue-"

"I'm sorry-"

"Sorry-"

"Sorry, go ahead-"

"Shutting up-"

"We'll listen until three o'clock-"

Cat, Andre, Robbie, Beck, and Jade's words melted into each other.

"As I was saying," Sikowitz went on

"Hey-" Jade cut the teacher off.

"Or not," Sikowitz said crossing his arms with a sigh.

Jade turned around in her seat to face Andre "Where's Tori? She finally decided to be bad and ditch?" Jade had the kind of infectious personality that didn't care if she ratted a friend out about skipping class.

"She's rehearsing her duet for the Spring Sing Off with David Beacher," Andre answered.

"Ooh! Isn't he that guy with the pretty blonde hair?" Cat piped up, playing with her own hair which was a dark red velvet cake red.

"Yeah, the baseball player" Jade answered back. "I hear Vega's dating him."

"She is," Andre told her. "They're in the same Jazz Vocal Class together."

"Good for Tori!" Cat said.

"Hey," Jade turn completely around in her chair so that she was sitting backwards in it, facing Andre. "Their singing one of your songs aren't they?"

"Yeah I just finished it last week." Andre answered with an inflection in his voice that didn't sound too happy about that fact.

Jade raised her eyebrows at him. "Wow, you don't sound too happy about that," As usual she was up to the challenge of saying what everyone else was thinking.

Beck sat up in his chair and looked at her. "Babe-"

"What?" Jade looked right back. "He doesn't." She turned back to Andre. "Tori sings duets with you on like everything dude. Now she's singing a song that you wrote without you. This has got to burn-"

Jade looked over to Beck, who still had a look of indignation on his face.

"Is there something on my face?" She snapped.

Beck just held up his hands and sighed.

"I knew I should've taken that Mexican Restyling Federation up on their offer last summer." Sikowitz threw out amidst the madness.

"It's not that," Andre said in defense to Jade's remark. "I just don't like David."

"Why?" Cat asked. "He seems nice."

Robbie looked at her in indignation. "You think he's cute don't you?"

"Yeah, cute means nice." Cat admitted, not like she wanted to break up with Robbie, but more like she was just stating a fact. "Like secret means whisper things."

Beck turned to Andre. "How come you don't like David? He seems like an okay guy."

"I don't know man," Andre admitted. "He seems too okay. He's always trying to impress Tori with how cool and chill he is. Like the other day, there must've been about fifteen notes from him taped to her locker, and they were all-" here Andre lowered his voice an octave to imitate David: 'Yo babyz, you're so fly and super. You and me equals 4 ever-' you know forever with the number 4-"

"Ooh! I love the number four! It's like a baby number!" Cat said with a giggle. It wasn't that she was air headed. It was just that she had the kind of positive personality that refused to see the bad things about any situation.

Andre didn't know what to say to Cat's remark.

"Wait?" Beck stated "He really used the number 4 instead of writing f-o-r?"

"Yep," Andre responded. "And he spelled ever 'Eva.'"

"Oh wow," Beck said. "He sounds-"

"Awesome!" Robbie said with over excitement. He looked around at the other two boys with an 'uh huh' expression.

"I was gonna say he sounds like doosh," Beck responded.

"Oh, "Robbie said. "That's what I meant. Sometimes I get confused with my words."

"If sometimes means always," Rex, Robbie's puppet sidekick chimed in.

Robbie looked at Rex offensively. Everyone else didn't say anything. After nearly three years of having Robbie Schapiro carry on whole conversations and antics with a ventriloquist dummy he got for a present from his Mamaw when he was 5; they were used to it. They were even dressed the same today, pale blue button down short sleeved shirt and black slacks, with black oxfords.

"And Tori likes this kind of thing?" Beck asked Andre in a bit of confusion. Tori did tend to fall hard for guys when she first met them. But he always considered her smarter than girls that fell for one liner guys.

"Mmmhmm," Andre said. "Dude, she eats it up every time. She's all- he brought his hands up to his chest like a little girl would do and raised his voice into a high falsetto to imitate Tori's: 'Oh Andre. David is so amazing and gifted!"

"Hey guys!" the door to Silkowitz's classroom burst open when Tori Vega walked through it. She tried to balance her big brown purse with her jacket slung over it on one arm, a cup of coffee in her other hand, and close the door with her brown suede boot all simultaneously. "I'm so sorry I'm late. My rehearsal with David ran over-" Tori juggled all her stuff and fell into the empty seat by Andre that everyone just normally tended to vacate for her. She rolled down the left sleeve of her white lace pullover that had gotten tugged up in her frantic entry.

"That's okay Tori," Sikowitz told her. He now sat on the floor of the stage in his classroom sipping from a furry coconut with a white straw stuck in it and had a newspaper opened on his knee. "I gave up trying to teach this class after Jade's first snarky comment. Now I'm looking to supplement my income with the horse races."

"Speaking of horses," Jade turned around in her chair again, and rested a hand on the back of it with turquoise ring on her middle finger. She gave Tori her infamous unsettling, trouble making smile. "We were all just talking about your new thoroughbred baseball singing boyfriend."

Tori gave Jade a look and waved a finger at her. "He is not a thoroughbred, okay? He's amazing and gifted!"

"That's exactly what Andre was telling us before you came in," Jade said, looking over at him. "Weren't you Andre?"

Andre cut Jade a look. She cut him one right back and added a finger wave.

Tori wasn't a stupid girl, but she was oblivious to this silent exchange. She turned to Andre with a smile on her face. "Aww thanks. It means so much to me that you guys all like David," while she talked she had taken Andre's arm and was rubbing the skin on his wrist just under his gray and black sleeved baseball shirt with her thumb.

Andre laughed dryly "You know I'm on board with ya Tori," he tried to make his smile genuine to cover up for his lame laugh.

"Yes!"

Tori and the others jumped at the sudden noise. They turned to the sound of Sikowitz clutching the paper to his chest and hugging it. He caught sight of all the eyes of his students on him. Especially the 'main ones' who did all the talking. "Blondie has a 40:1 racing odd, maybe I can finally earn enough to build my mother her own room and get her out of mine!"

Everyone gave him odd looks, but he just chewed his pencil happily, oblivious to it.

xxxxXxxxxx

Tori wrestled with shoving her 'Advanced Kabuki Play Theatre' into her already overcrowded locker. The book knocked over her magnetic locker mirror on the door, and a sports bottle filled with an orange energy drink and dropped them both to the floor.

Tori growled under her breath. "C'mon!" She bent down and picked up the book and the mirror. "Get in you stupid-!" She tried to bang the items into her locker sideways. She managed to slap the mirror back on the locker door, and get the book haphazardly into the locker on top of a teetering pile of other text books.

She was so absorbed in her task at cursing the contents of her locker that she didn't notice Andre come up to her until he bent down and handed her the sports bottle. "You need to clean out your locker more."

"Ugh I know," Tori took the bottle from him and shoved it the locker and slammed the door before anything could fall on her. "I've just been crazy busy with all these classes. And there's the song that David and I have been working on-"

"Yeah about that," Andre said, trying not to cringe at the mention of 'David' He fingered the lid of his water bottle. "How's it working out? I mean with the lyrics? You still feeling them?"

"Oh my god, yes," Tori's response was almost instantaneous. "Your arrangement is so amazing! I can never write something that good."

"Don't sell yourself short Vega," Andre said. "You're pretty amazing with the vocals."

Tori rewarded him with a smile showing all her teeth. "Yeah I am, aren't I?"

Andre rewarded her with a laugh. His laugh got Tori smiling more.

This lasted for about another minute, then Andre's laugh melted off his face when he spotted a tall dark blonde guy in a black Henley and jeans as he snuck up behind Tori and placed his hands over her eyes.

"Hey beautiful," the guy said.

Tori smiled and turned around staring up at him. "Hey you!" she reached up and hugged him then he pulled her into a kiss.

Through all of this Andre was quiet. But he had the same annoyed look he would if he were waiting for someone to stop texting in their front seat of their car and blocking him in his parking space.

Finally David separated himself from Tori. He then seemed to finally notice Andre standing there. "Oh hey Andrew."

"It's Andre," Andre said trying to bite away the annoyance in his voice.

"Oh sorry man," David said, like it was nothing big.

Which it wasn't to Andre, the first time, not the 30th.

He took in Andre's baseball shirt. It didn't have a logo for the school, but he pointed at it anyway. "Hey, you on the team?"

"No," Andre answered him. "I'm more of a football and song writing guy. Plus this was just the only clean shirt I had left that my grandma didn't cut up checking for hidden microphones from the CIA."

"Oh- Okay," David said, like Andre's remark had made him find something lacking in Andre himself. "Hey, do you mind if I steal Tori? It's our one week anniversary, and I got a mack date all lined up."

Tori squealed a girly giggle. The kind she did when she was excited. "He's taking me to Mrs. Lee's new restaurant 'Oppan Galbi Style.'

"Wait-" Andre was confused. It gave him something else to think about besides the fact that David seriously just used the phrase mack date "Galbi is a Korean dish. I thought Mrs. Lee was Chinese?"

"Hey it's not like it matters," David said. "As long as I'm with my baby Tori," he wrapped an arm around Tori's waist.

"Aww," Tori cooed, "That's so sweet, she rested her head on his shoulder. She pulled away after a minute and turned back to Andre. "Oh I almost forgot. You're coming over tonight to help me finish the revision to the song right?"

"Yeah, " Andre agreed, glad to be talking about something that didn't have to do with David. "You still want me to be there at 7:30?"

"Yeah, that's fine," Tori said with the casual easiness she always reserved her for and Andre's conversations. "We should be done with dinner by then, right babe?" She looked up to David in inquiry.

"I guess so," David said. He was still smiling, but there was a kind of tick in his voice.

"I'll leave the key under the mat, " Tori told Andre. "Just let yourself in if we're not back by then. Oh and avoid Trina at all costs tonight. She's trying this new salt and vinegar full body cleanse, and you do not wanna be around when she's trying to unclog her pipes-"

"Baby girl, come on," David cut in." We don't want to miss our reservations." He started to walk away and yanked on Tori's arm to pull her with him.

"Oh okay," Tori said, getting her feet to walk under her in sync with David's fast rhythm. She turned back to turn to Andre. "see you then!"

"Yeah bye Andrew," David said without bothering to turn around, pulling Tori a little harder, but still with an arm around her waist. And he must've said something Tori liked, because she laughed and dropped her head on his shoulder again.

Andre waved back, nearly breaking the water bottle in his hand.

Beck came up behind him, hands in the pockets of his jeans, sleeves on his blue and yellow plaid button up rolled up to his elbows. "Baby girl?" He raised his eyebrows at the remark he had overheard David say about Tori. "And did he also call you Andrew?"

"Yeah," This time the lid popped off Andre's bottle from his squeezing and water poured down his hand like an erupted geyser.

"Dude, you seriously need to talk to Tori about this guy, " Beck told him. "Because if you don't, I will. He's all wrong for her."

"Hey some people would say the same about you and Jade," Andre reminded.

"I can handle Jade's crazy insanity because I know who she is underneath," Beck said. "What does Tori know about this guy? They've been going out for a week."

"Yeah, I know," Andre said, the words kept coming out to his friend now that he had someone to vent too who agreed with him. "He does seem faker then Cat's pretty red hair."

"So tell her that," Beck insisted. "Tonight, when you guys meet up to work on your song."

"I don't know man," Andre disagreed. "Tori can be a little defensive when it comes to the guys she dates."

"Dude you're her friend. You kind of have an obligation to tell her these things. I mean what if he hurts her like that Ryder guy and you didn't do anything? You gonna be able to live with that?"

Andre sighed. "You're right. I'll tell her tonight at her house."

"Actually you could tell her in about an hour when you go pick up the take out order."

Andre looked at him in confusion "What take out order?"

"The one you're picking up for me and Jade," Beck said as he pulled his backpack around to the front of his chest and unzipped a side pocket and took out his wallet. "She wants to watch The Scissoring II-Fiskar Fury and eat some fried Wontons." He pulled out a twenty dollar bill and replaced his wallet back inside the bag.

"And how come you can't pick it up yourself?" Andre asked.

"Because Jade also wants me to pick up the movie from the Orangebox, and the nearest one's at the Walton Mart across town from Oppan Galbi Style. I'm supposed to do all this and meet her at my trailer in an hour."

"How come you didn't tell her that you can't do all that at once?" Andre dared ask.

"I did," Beck informed. "Then she told me if I really loved her I'd better figure it out," Beck insisted.

Andre shot him a raised eyebrow look. "That's a complicated woman."

"Tell me about it," Beck said slapping the money in Andre's hand.


xxxXxxx

"Ahh! Andre Harris! Welcome!" Mrs. Lee came over to him from behind the counter in a Hanbok, a traditional Korean dress, with long fan sleeves and a poufy flowing skirt that tied in front with a large bow. Her Hanbok was forest green on top with a bright red skirt. Her hair was pulled into an extremely tight bun held up with two black lacquered chopsticks. It looked like she had given herself a homemade facial tightening.

"Hey Mrs. Lee," Andre said. He looked around the restaurant. It was filled with knee high cherry wood tables with cushions that sat on Tantami mats. For customers who didn't want to sit on the floor, there were also several tables with black lacqured chairs around them. Waitresses in dresses like Mrs. Lee's walked amongst the guests bringing hot cooked Galbi, beef ribs marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil and ginger, on wooden skewers. Along one wall was a full service bar also made of cherry wood with ornate carvings of trees on its front façade. All of its black stools were filled with people laughing and joking, multi colored drinks in tall glasses in their hands. In the center of the room was a raised stage with a karaoke machine and professional mixing board set up.

"Your new place is great," Andre said, giving everything an impressed gaze.

"Oh thank you, you make me blush!" Mrs. Lee said waving him off. "It's just something I threw together, last minute."

"I see you got a Karaoke stage in here just like at Nozu," Andre remarked.

"Oh yes," Mrs. Lee boasted. "I like to stay true to my ancestry."

Andre turned to look at the woman, having to look down since she was a good two inches shorter than him. "But this is a Korean restaurant."

"Yes that's right." Mrs. Lee said with a wide, satisfied grin.

"But I thought Karaoke was Japanese?"

"What's your point?" Mrs. Lee asked in a defensive voice. She was giving him a dirty look like he'd insulted the patronage of her family. "You got problem with Korea?"

Andre held up his hands as if in surrender. "No ma'am. No problem. I love Korea." he said." China and Japan too." he added as an afterthought.

Mrs. Lee scowl faded back into a smile. She reached up and patted Andre on the cheek. "You're a good boy Andre Harris. I glad for that. Cause otherwise I'd have to hang you by your thumbs over a viper pit."

Andre swallowed. He could never tell if this woman was kidding. She always had a manic gleam in her eye whenever she talked, and he wouldn't put it past her to have an actually pit of vipers somewhere in her restaurant.

"Uh, thank you," Andre said. He cleared his throat. "Listen, I need to pick up a takeout order for my friend-"

"Oh sure!" Mrs. Lee said "Shana take care of you," she pointed into the direction of a pretty girl with dark brown hair braided intricately down her back in a pink Hanbok. "Shana!" Mrs. Lee's shrill voice made Shana jump and spill change she was about to hand to the man in front of her down his shirt. "You take care of my special friend Andre Harris, right?"

"Y-yes, Mrs. Lee," Shana said doing a little clumsy bow that she had just learned last week. Because that's as long as she had been working here. The man clutched his shirt full of money and left.

Mrs. Lee smiled at Shana in her creepy 'I will kill you in your sleep with an ice pick to your brain if you screw up' way and left Andre, screaming in a stream of Korean and Chinese too a poor bus boy who started running the minute he saw her coming in his direction.

Andre stepped cautiously away from all the shouting to separate himself away from crazy Mrs. Lee and over to Shana at the counter.

Shana gave a cautious finger wave at Andre, like they had both been victims of a psychopath. "Hey." she backed up her wave with a smile.

"Hey," Andre returned. "I'm here to pick up an order for Beck Oliver, should be some fried wantons for his crazy girlfriend."

Shana laughed. "I think I can handle that. Just don't tell Mrs. Lee if I screw it up. She keeps threatening to make me dig a pit out back and fill it with vipers, and I can't tell if she's serious."

"Yeah I know the feeling," Andre agreed.

Shana pointed at him "You go to Hollywood Arts don't you?"

"Yeah," Andre agreed, he leant up on the counter. She was a pretty girl. Dark roan colored hair, brown eyes, full lips. "You go?"

"No," Shana told him, pulling out the handwritten take out order from a box and turning to the plastic wrapped boxes of food behind her. She started cross checking the ticket with the bags. "I go to the math magnet school at the east end of town. My friend goes to HA. I'm not musically gifted." She placed his bag of food on the counter in front of him.

"You're probably just too full of trinomial equations and stuff." Andre joked, it was corny. But it made Shana smile. And she had a nice smile.

"I've never heard that line before," she said taking the money and ringing up his order.

" I guess I'm an original," Andre said.

"Hey!"

Andre heard Tori's voice and heels before he saw her. He turned and saw her approach him from one of the little tables people sat on the floor by and ate their Korean food.

"What's up?" Tori said when she reached him. "Is everything okay?"

Andre took a moment to let it sink it that Tori was a really good friend to immediately ask how he was before wondering why he was there.

"Tori hey!" Andre said, taking his change back from Shana. "Yeah, it's cool. I'm just picking up an order for Beck and Jade."

"Let me guess," Tori said. "Beck called you for backup because Jade sent him to do a million things in an hour and threatened him with death and dismemberment if he failed."

"Basically," Andre said with a bit of a smile. It was just like every other conversation they had, where they didn't even have to try because they knew each other that well. He wished that it would just remain like this, instead of what Beck gave him 20 dollars and an second hand order from Jade to say.

"So how's it going with David?" Andre said, not knowing how the hell to start a conversation like this. Really there was no way to start a conversation like this.

Tori's eyes lit up at David's name. "It's great. He's so sweet."

Andre resisted trying to punch something at her look. "Good, that's good." He swallowed to stall. "Hey Tor-?"

"We're still on for 7:30 right?"

"What?" Andre said, he'd been running a monologue in his head about what to say to her, so he hadn't been paying attention. He couldn't decide between: Hey Tori, David seems a little wrong for you, or Hey Tori, you're boyfriend a tool, just saying.' He realized he still hadn't answered her question. "Oh 7:30? Yeah we're still on."

Tori looked at him in concern : "You sure you're okay? You seem really distracted."

"Yeah, I'm good," Andre said. He had run out of stalling. Time to tell her before he wound up spending the night with Mrs. Lee's viper pit. "Listen Tori, I need to tell you-"

"Hey babe."

Tori turned to David who had come up behind her.

"Oh hey." Tori said with a smile.

"I came back from the bathroom and I didn't see you, I was worried." David said. The words were supposed to be concerned. But there was also a demand in them.

"I'm fine, I just came to get more soy sauce." Tori reassured him with a smile and held up the little bottle of black sodium liquid.

"I just worry about you baby," David said wrapping his arm around her waist and kissing the side of her head.

After he pulled away he looked at Andre, just like at school, like he had just noticed him. "Hey Aaron-"this time he didn't hide the hostility in his gaze: "You following us?"

Andre tried to back off his own glare."No man it's not like that- I just came to get an order for a friend."

"Oh good," David gave a laugh that didn't even pretend to not be fake. His grip on Tori tightened a little more. "Because for a minute, it seemed like you wanted to take a run at my girl. But that's stupid, because you guys are just friends." He said friends like he would say if Andre were her mechanic, or dog walker, like he didn't mean anything.

"Yeah, " Andre said back, looking right at David. "We're friends."

"Good," David said fake smile firmly in place. "Because Tori knows that I'm the only guy for her." He laughed again.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Andre said.

"Hey dude, chillax," David said arms out like he was stretching lazily. "Tori's my baby, and I don't think she wants to share me with anyone else."

"I think Tori can talk for herself dude," Andre came back.

The hostility between the two 17-year-old boys was electric hot. They both glowered at each other, waiting for the trigger that would set them off.

"Okay," Tori finally broke in. She grabbed Andre's arm, and leaned into him. "Can I talk to you for a second?" She pushed him towards the restrooms next to a group of girls waiting to use the ladies one.

"What is up with you?" Tori asked. "Why are you acting all wonky?"

"I'm sorry-" Andre started to apologize, but then, his anger towards David steered his words. "I just don't think David's right for you."

Tori gave him an look like she had misheard him. "Right for me? What's that supposed to mean?" Her voice got shrill when she was angry. " Is this because I'm singing the song you and I wrote with David instead of you?"

"It's not about the song Tori," Andre insisted. "I can't believe you don't see how David treats you!"

"He treats me like a gentleman," Tori retorted in disbelief. "He always has!"

"Is that why he pulls you around like you're some dog on a leash, and why he doesn't let you talk for yourself?"

"I talk for myself just fine!" Tori's voice held nothing but disgust. She stepped back and glared at him. "You know I can't believe you! You said you liked David!"

They were speaking in hushed tones, and the Karaoke stage was in full swing, but a few of the girls exiting the bathroom turned to stare at them because of their agitated body language.

"I said that because I didn't want to make you feel bad!" Andre said in defense.

"Oh real good job!" Tori shouted.

More people turned to stare because they weren't trying to be quiet anymore.

"You know what," Andre waved her off with both hands. "Forget it. I came here to tell you that David was bad news. He treats you like crap Tor. But you wanna sit here and defend him, then I'm out!" He pushed by her and stormed off.

Tori watched him leave, she stomped forward a few steps. "Fine! Go! I can write my own songs!" She walked back to where David was standing by their table watching her and Andre. He immediately put his arm around her, and pulled her to their table.

From the counter Shana watched Andre stomp over to the bar. "Is she a friend of yours?" She eyed Tori and David who had reclaimed their seats on the cushions that surrounded the low lacquered table.

"Can I just have my take out order please?" Andre said.

Shana handed him the plastic bag containing two Styrofoam boxes of wontons.

"Thanks," Andre said, taking the bag from her.

"I know it's none of my business or anything," Shana said. "But that guy you're friend's with, he seems like kind of a jerk. I wouldn't feel comfortable if one of my friends out with someone like that either."

Andre didn't reply, just left the restaurant with the food, the sounds of Ron Pope's 'Fireflies' being sung badly by a kid on the Karaoke stage.

xxxxXxxxxx