A/N: Hello everyone! Here's the first Rade one-shot from me in months, based on the newest episode, Driving Tori Crazy. When I saw the part where Jade was driving Tori to school, interestingly through a desert and with a shovel in the back seat of her car (and especially the 'sultry' smile she gave Tori), my 'Jori sense' began tingling. But given that I have never written a Jori one-shot before, and I'm scared I couldn't be able to do Tori and Jade justice, I decided to do a Rade one.

Congratulations to ZenNoMai for his nominations in the 2012 Topaz Awards! Hope you win, and I of course will vote for you. You're awesome, man!

Disclaimer: Do I really need to say it every time I post a fanfic? Le sigh. Victorious does not belong to me, it belongs to Dan Schneider, the man who can make Rade and Jori a reality if he wanted to.

Le sigh.

Probably the Heat

By GallaudetLurker

Robbie Shapiro swallowed, his throat dry.

The heat inside the car, along with the weather outside, did not help matter one bit. The silence was equally as suffocating.

Fidgeting uncomfortably, Robbie felt his shirt and tight pants cling to his skin as sweat began breaking out all over his body. He hated the feeling, and it definitely did not help that the car's air conditioner was broken. He'd tried to roll the window down, but it did little except invite even more solar rays in and annoying the driver even more.

Speaking of which...

As hard he tried, Robbie could not help but let his eyes drift over to his left side, to the driver. Her long dark hair swayed slightly as she kept her attention riveted on the road on front of her. Somehow, Robbie mused, the jade green highlights fit her so well. Her slightly tanned face was smooth, bereft of blemishes and sweat.

Sometimes Robbie wondered how Jade was able to not sweat, considering that he had ever seen her sweat only once in his lifetime, and only with the assistance of a locked RV on a particularly hot day at the beach, and an idiotic driver for parking his oversized van right next to said RV and trapping him and his friends inside for hours.

For some reason, Robbie felt the heat, as sweltering as it was, rise as he briefly glanced down. Jade was wearing a black tank top, and needless to say, it fit her rather well, especially her-

"What are you looking at, puppet boy?"

Jolting out of his thoughts, feeling his face heat up, Robbie hastily turned away, suddenly finding the desert very interesting. "N-nothing..." He mumbled awkwardly, mentally beating himself up for giving such a lame answer. His heart was pounding in his constricted chest, his empty hands fidgeting restlessly, as he heard Jade scoff.

He wished he had Rex with him, and would have brought him...had Jade not grabbed Rex out of his hands and viciously throwing him onto the street, snarling at Robbie to either leave the "damn puppet" home or walk to school.

Despite his extreme reluctance (and anxiety), Robbie chose the former. But still, he could not help but feel a gaping hole inside his heart that Rex's presence, as insulting and mocking it was, helped to fill for the most part every day. Interestingly, he felt the same way whenever he was around Jade, despite the fact she peppered him with putdowns and insults everyday whenever she took the chance.

Although she did not do that as much as of lately, and whenever she did fire off insults, they lacked the barb. Robbie noticed that Jade had been acting rather...strange around him recently. More than once, he'd caught her looking at him (prompting said girl to look away immediately), and she had been sitting next to him in Sikowitz's class - sorta similar to the way she and Beck used to sit together - even going as far to physically pull up a chair next to Robbie. She'd also sat next to him during the April Fools game show.

Could it be...?

Nah. The heat must be getting to him, Robbie faintly mused to himself with a soft chuckle. The desert heat was messing with his mind, further feeding him with false hopes that his secret crush could like him back.

Yeah, Robbie Shapiro had a large crush on Jade West. Without delving too much into clichéd details, Robbie fell for Jade the moment he first saw her years ago. There was a reason he pursued Trina, Cat, and many other girls that turned him down without as much a first thought. And without delving too much into clichés, Jade West was, to put it mildly, stunningly beautiful, even more than all the females on the planet.

He wasn't kidding or even exaggerating. Jade was that beautiful, and in Robbie's opinion, Beck was a damn fool for letting her go. And Robbie felt like one when his heart soared with hope, feeling like he finally had a chance - as nonexistent as it was - with Jade. But due to his cowardly nature, Robbie pushed his feelings and hopes deep inside, clamming up about his true feelings as he pretended to break down and bemoan about the 'perfect couple' shit.

If he wasn't so damned cowardly, and if Jade didn't scare him as much as she...exhilarated him, Robbie would've took the leap of faith and pursued Jade. But alas, fate - like everything else - was not on his side.

It was fate that caused his good, reliable convertible - the very one that was stolen from him over a year ago - to break down. Given that his parents usually ignored him, and that he didn't have money with him (he'd cursed himself for spending all of his bar mitzvah on male makeup and airtight jeans) for repairs (and Beck refused to help him this time, for some reason), Robbie had little choice but to ask his friends to drive him to school. Tori didn't have a driver's license, Trina ignored him, and Beck and Andre said no.

Imagine his surprise when Jade - out of the blue - offered to give him a ride on her car. The fact she did it, without any demands or conditions or even any prodding from Beck, boggled his mind.

So, here he was, sitting awkwardly in the front passenger seat next to his secret crush, in a car filled with shovels and driving through a desert.

As if realization suddenly struck him, Robbie's eyes widened in horror as he turned to look at Jade, feeling panic course through him.

Jade...Jade...

She was going to kill him and bury him in the desert. Why hadn't he realized it earlier, when Jade had shovels in the back of her car and when she didn't drive through the usual routes to Hollywood Arts?

When Jade glanced at him and actually smiled at him (actually, it wasn't much of a smile, but a smile nevertheless) before turning her attention back to the road, Robbie's panic slowly began to mount. Seeing his life flash right before his very eyes, Robbie felt himself begin to sweat (as if he wasn't sweating from the heat already) and his hand twitch slightly as he began to look at his car door, wondering if he should try to escape...

"Don't think about it, Shapiro. I'm not going to kill you and bury you in the desert sand, if that's what you're thinking."

Feeling relief flood over him, Robbie turned to Jade. She still had that strange smile on her face, and as unnerving it was, it was turning him on.

"Um...uh...I-I wasn't thinking of j-jumping out of the car," Robbie chuckled, his voice cracking slightly and his throat still dry. "I-If that's what you're thinking..."

Jade continued to look at him for several seconds (Robbie felt like her blue orbs were boring right through him) before she rolled her eyes and refocused on driving. "Whatever you say, Shapiro." All while having the strange smile on her face.

Silence reigned in the car once again for several moments as Robbie continued to look outside the car window, feeling somewhat mollified now that Jade wasn't going to murder him or anything. Perhaps it was good that Robbie didn't bring Rex with him, because Jade would've definitely buried the both of them out in the desert.

He wondered if he had gone off the deep edge by falling for someone like Jade West.

Before he could mull that further, Robbie felt the car careen to the side and slow to a stop. Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, Robbie turned to look at Jade as she killed the ignition, unbuckled her seatbelt, and turned to him.

"Look there, I know I shouldn't be doing this," Jade said as she reached over and grabbed Robbie by the collar, pulling him closer. "Maybe it's the heat, or the fact I'm broken up with Beck, or it's my attraction to you..." Robbie's eyes widened as his heart began to hitch up, his mind reeling from the unexpected revelation as a sensation of hope began to course through his body. "No, it's probably the heat."

With that, Jade pulled Robbie closer, slamming her lips upon his.

A/N: Hope the ending was okay, hope you liked this story. It's not half-bad, considering that it's after 4am in the morning here, lmao. As usual, read and review, everyone. :)

Oh, and here's to hoping that I write a Jori fanfic someday.

- GL