No One Mourns the Wicked
summary: Just something that you can't escape.
disclaimer: Victorious isn't mine. The quote in the beginning belongs to As Tall As Lions.
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"It must be easy to believe in nothing."
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"Do you see her sometimes?" Tori asks Beck one night when their limbs are tangled underneath the sheets and their fingers are laced together, their gravity weighing each other down, almost as though they're afraid to let go, that the other will float away.
"No." He hesitates, sighs, "Yes. Well – I think so." He turns sideways, looks at her through his bangs.
"Me too," she says, pushing the hair out of his eyes, "I think I do, too."
She pauses, holds her breath when he leans forward, kisses her forehead, her eyelids, her nose. She finally takes in a breath against his skin, his scent mixed with hers, vanilla and apples, a hint of cigarette smoke on his part.
"Did she believe in God?" Tori asks, closing her eyes, eyelashes brushing innocently against his skin.
"She didn't believe in anything."
"Oh," Tori says, her voice a whisper when she utters, "That's so sad."
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Local Hollywood Arts Student, Jade West, Dies in Tragic Accident.
"I think it was on purpose," Beck admits with the newspaper clutched so tightly in his hand that his knuckles are white.
"What makes you think that?" Tori asks, hugging Beck's pillow to her chest.
He looks up, meets her gaze. They avert their eyes in shame.
"She's always been dramatic," he says.
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Tori is the one asked to clean out Jade's locker, and she knows it would have been Cat, if she could stop crying long enough to see straight.
She takes an empty cardboard box, sets it down on the floor, and digs the slip of paper with Jade's combination on it out of her pocket. She fiddles with the lock, jerks it open, stares blankly at the pictures and scissors and books and cutouts from old magazines.
Don't touch it, Jade's voice warns through the lull of her mind when she reaches for a picture of Beck, it's mine.
Tori jerks her hand back, fire shooting up her veins, and slams the locker door shut. She takes a deep breath, pain dulled, and rips the scissors off of the metal, throws them into the box. She leaves the rest of Jade's things there, carries the box to the dumpster.
She hopes no one is moving into that locker.
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"I heard her," Tori confides to Beck in a whisper while they're sitting next to one another in the back of a theatre, "Right next to me."
Beck blinks, shoves hair out of his eyes, "You're just tired."
"Beck," Tori tries again, her eyes pleading.
"You're getting sick and you're hearing things," Beck says, feeling her forehead with his palm, "Look, you're white as a ghost. I'll take you to the nurse."
"I'm not sick," Tori says, shaking her head, pushing his hand away. "I know she was there."
"Come on." Beck takes her arm.
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Don't touch him.
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"If Jade was a ghost," Tori starts, sitting down beside Beck in the library, "What kind do you think she'd be? Good or evil?"
Beck raises his brow, reaches over the table and puts his hand on top of hers, "I think that depends on how much she likes you."
Tori blinks, trembles.
"Are you okay? Tori – hey, Tori!" Beck holds her when she screams, words burned into her brain, carved into her skin.
Get the fuck away.
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"I can't be with you."
Tori's gaze lingers on the cracks in the sidewalk. She fidgets with her hands, can't meet his eyes.
"Why not?" Beck touches her shoulder. He's hurt. Defeated. Please don't go is in his expression, and she hates it hates it hates it.
Because I'm a coward, she thinks.
"Because I don't love you," she says.
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She wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, chest heaving, forehead drenched in sweat. It's freezing in her room, but her body is burning. She squeezes her eyes closed, wills it to go away. She feels a hand over her heart.
When she forces her eyes open, the touch vanishes.
A sob escapes her lips as she reaches for her phone, dials Beck's number with shaking fingers.
He picks up on the second ring.
"Hell – ?"
The line goes dead. (She thinks it might be some sort of omen.) She calls him again.
He doesn't pick up.
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She waits by the door in front of the school to see if his truck ever shows up. When it does, she runs into the parking lot and jumps into his arms before he even has time to haul his bag out of the back.
He puts his arms around her, buries his nose into the juncture between her neck and shoulder, breathes in and out in and out, over and over again to calm himself.
"I'm scared," she whispers into his shirt.
Then Beck mutters, "So am I."
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They leave school before it starts and go to Beck's RV, because they need to figure some things out.
Tori is the first to say it, even if they're supposed to pretend otherwise, even if Beck persuades himself not to believe it, even if Tori thinks Jade is better than that, "She's going to kill us."
Beck is silent. Then, meeting Tori's gaze deliberately, calmly, he says, "No, Tori." He pauses, reaching for her and gripping her shoulder tightly in a way that feels like he's afraid to let her go. "She's going to kill you."
Her shoulder burns where Beck's hand stays.
"Let go," she whispers.
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Tori knows how she's going to die. Jade, although dramatic, was never really creative.
She rests her cheek on Beck's shoulder, prays that he's the last thing she thinks of.
He takes her hand, gives her a reassuring smile, fools her for a split second into thinking that everything is going to be okay.
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Victoria "Tori" Vega, Hollywood Arts Student, Murdered.
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"I love you," Beck whispers into her ear before brown eyes are replaced with electric blue.
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a/n: In case you didn't catch it, the last sentence happens before the newspaper headline. Thanks for reading! Please don't favorite without reviewing.