Song: The A Team by Ed Sheeran

Pairing: Cat Valentine/Robbie Shapiro

Disclaimer: I don't own the song or Victorious, sadly. But I love Ed and Victorious, so...some of the words are italicized to heighten their meaning, and others may be flashbacks or dreams.


White lips, pale face, breathing in snowflakes.

Caterina Valentine's long faded crimson hair, her overgrown bangs clipped back with a small white plastic clip, whipped against her neck as she walked home, shivering, straight white teeth chattering. She wore nothing more than a girly dark-blue paisley tank dress, black Converse and a hot pink cardigan, not the clothes for the erratic weather of Maryland - not that she had any warmer clothes, all of her clothes were made for warm California weather. The color had disappeared from her face, she was pale with flushed cheeks, and when she breathed, a puff of white smoke was elicited from her blood-red lips.

Burnt lungs, sour taste.

She remembered trying it, the name of it was too dirty to say, for the first time. Jade had brought some to school and offered it to her, Trina and Tori. Tori had denied a taste, but Trina, always wanting to be cool, snorted it off the sink. Cat didn't want to, but Jade made it effortless for the young naive girl.

"It smells like cherries,"

"I like cherries," she responded, sniffing it up her nose.

Light's gone, day's end.

When Lane busted her, Trina and Jade during the ping-pong team practice, her parents were furious.

"Caterina, we thought you were different. We thought you weren't your brother. What happened Kitty Cat?" her mother's voice evened out, remembering she wasn't talking to a normal teenager. She was talking to Cat.

Innocence, the theme of the day. Cats were innocent. She feigned innocence. "I thought it was baby powder. I like the smell of baby powder."

Cat's mother shook her head. "Oh, Kitty Cat, go pack your bags."

Cat went upstairs, and packed all of her bags. The innocent little redhead in the back of her mind wondered if it was really a trip; after all, they'd told Jared he was going on a trip and he went to a home for troubled teens, or at least that's what she thought. Nobody ever told her where Jared went. She was only six. According to her mom, trained in the art of adopting troubled children, "Jared went bye-bye." Well, Jared went bye-bye ten years ago. She remembered going to a funeral when she was thirteen, but funerals made her sad, so she sat out in the car the entire time and never discovered who it was for.

This home was in Maryland, all the way across the country.

Struggling to pay rent

After three years in the home, Caterina - she was too wronged to go by Cat, an innocent name for an innocent girl - was stable enough to leave, and she made a living in Lusby, Maryland. She moved into a two-bedroom apartment with a witty journalist-in-training named Liana, who she knew from the home. Her parents paid 200 dollars rent as long as Liana stayed clean and physically lived in the apartment. Liana was a recovering narcotic-popper, and she practically drug-tested and frisked anybody who came into their lives, so it was impossible to get any drugs.

She thought, maybe this is where I need to be, this is what I need.

She'd been out of the home for almost a year when Liana told her she was getting married to a photographer named Kobe.

"Cat, you've been a fabulous roommate, but...I'm moving out, and you need to find a new house, or get a job."

Well, that's not exactly easy. "I'll try."

Long nights, strange men.

Caterina gagged when he bucked his hips into her mouth, forcing his semen down her throat. She winced at the bitter taste as he undressed her, throwing her grey peasant top across the dark college dorm room and sliding her dark skinny jeans down her legs.

He was unnamed. All of his douchebag friends had pushed him towards her upon learning she was a prostitute, so she assumed the young boy was going through hazing. She'd almost disagreed, hazing was illegal, and she couldn't afford to be part of an illegal fraternity scheme, but a shaggy-haired boy in a football jersey pulled out 500 dollars and waved it in her face. She couldn't disagree. With 500 dollars, she could buy food, pay rent, and maybe get new clothes and some crack.

She lolled back as he sucked an erect nipple into his mouth, forgetting everything.

And they say she's in the class a team.

She knew the moms in the park talked about her in the state park/walking trail she frequented.

"Hi," the little girl who approached her had blonde hair and big blue eyes. The epitome of innocence. "I like your shirt and your hair."

She looked down at her shirt, it was blue with rainbow-colored lightning bolts.

"Kaiya, don't talk to strangers," her mother warned, scooping her up and narrowing her eyes at Caterina, turning to her friend, who was breastfeeding a baby, and whispering. "she's a druggie."

Stuck in her daydream, been this way since eighteen.

Occasionally, when she was stuck in the home, or having casual sex with anybody who was willing, Caterina wondered where she would be now if she hadn't been so naive.

Cat was recording for her new album when her sharply-dressed, hair-gelled husband walked in, their wild-haired baby daughter settled on his hip, sucking her thumb.

"Hi Robbie," she pecked his cheek. "Hi Emelia."

"Hi Mommy," the little girl lisped, popping her thumb out of her mouth, and grinning toothlessly.

As her young client slid a finger into her slick folds, she moaned and the precious moment was lost.

But lately, her face seems slowly sinking, wasting, crumbling like pastries.

Caterina knew her time was coming. Her routine of sleep all day, snort and sex all night was unhealthy. She didn't eat much, her refrigerator was full of expired foods. It wasn't that she wasn't hungry. Her routine didn't leave much time to eat. Sometimes she had a yogurt while she was getting ready.

And they scream the worst things in life come free to us.

"I googled her last night, I saw that she went to a performing arts school in LA," a mom mentioned. "so much potentional, and then she went completely downhill."

"Bad things happen to good people," breastfeeding mom mentioned.

Cause we're just under the upperhand, go mad for a couple grams.

Caterina couldn't believe she was doing this as she slipped her tongue into a teenager's wet folds. Had it really come to this?

This was illegal, she was fucking a minor.

25-year-old Caterina Elizabeth Madeline Jane Valentine was fucking a 15-year-old girl.

And she liked it.

No, she was doing it for the crack. She wasn't a lesbian.

And she don't want to go outside, tonight, cause in her pipe she flies to the motherland or sells love to another man.

She loved being high.

Nothing mattered. She didn't think about anything but the sex she was having. It was no longer for money, it was purely for the pleasure.

She'd gotten with many girls since that night, and tonight was no different.

One very drunk girl was suckling at her nipple, and another was nipping at her folds while fingering the other girl.

It's too cold outside for angels to fly.

Caterina wished she could leave, go back to California and make a life for herself.

But she was too broken.

She was forever in the class A team.


Author's Note:

so, did you like it? no...oh well, this is awkward. uh, constructive criticism, k?

1. any songs you'd like to see?

2. any other pairings?

3. any other tv shows?