Disclaimer: Victorious, despite my drunken yelling the previous night, does not belong to me. Also, I couldn't climb that lamppost. I admit I was wrong about that.
/
"Vega." The name comes out flat, hard, a word that slaps the air. It's a statement, not a question, but she takes it like one.
Tori pushes herself off my car, her arms unfolding while mine cross defensively, as if they could keep her voice out. The sun stains her skin orange as it hangs low in the Hollywood sky, the last of the kids leaving the parking lot. I'd hung back after school, rifling through the trash in my locker and finally just sweeping it all out, sick of it, slamming the cool steel door with a rattle.
Ever since that day, that day I don't think about, I don't, it's been the same. No, not the same, just a forced replication of what things used to be like. Beck's arms are a shield I sink back into, his chest a hard wall to rest against. A place to smirk at Tori from, while she flicks her eyes away and gnaws at her lip. A reminder that nothing happened, remember? A contradiction. Every chance I get I snap at her, I let my tongue slice through her skin and draw blood. But it hurts to see her flinch, to see her take every blow with a soft confusion, like she's forgotten that this was how things were, although maybe not this severe.
I've seen her try to catch my eye sometimes, breath held like she's about to say something, and those times I've turned and tugged Beck closer, crashed my lips into his and lost myself. This is what happens, this is what is expected. I don't talk to Tori, I don't listen to her. I'm not her friend, I'm not her confidant, and I am most certainly not her lover. I'm nothing to her, and she's nothing to me. Acquaintances and nothing more. At least, that's how it should be.
Yet here she is, leaning against my car, brow furrowed down. "We have to talk, Jade."
"About what, Vega? About you scratching my car?"
Tori pushes a hand through her hair, glancing instinctively to where I point. "I didn't- look, you know why I'm here. You know what I want to talk about. Stop playing dumb."
"Dumb?" I let a low laugh escape me. "Did you just call me dumb, Vega?" I shake my head, blue extension stroking my cheek.
Tori lets out an exasperated sigh. "You know what I mean, Jade! Stop... stop pretending nothing happened."
I let the smirk drop off my face, eyebrows arrowing down. "I don't know what you're talking about, Tori. And neither do you. Nothing happened."
The lights of my navy sedan flash as I hit the unlock button, slinging my bag off my shoulder.
"Jade-" Tori's voice holds an edge of anger, and I feel that smirk return to my face. Anger I can handle, anger I can fight. That soft confusion that stained her words before... that I don't know how to deal with. Same reason I can't deal with children. I don't know how to make someone understand what's so clear to me.
I shrug her hand off my shoulder roughly as it touches tentatively, Tori curling it to her side, face set.
I circle around to the driver's side, pulling the door open roughly and tossing my bag in. "Grow up, Vega. Nothing happened, okay? Just get over it."
I sit heavily in the leather seat, material warm from the sun, hands sliding onto the grey steering wheel, leather worn. I shut the door heavily, eyes flickering closed for a moment as the sound from outside gets cut off. My car is my sanctum. When I'm pissed off, when I'm upset, it lets me run, lets me drown my ears in music and set my brain to autopilot. It lets me stop thinking, it lets me forget. It calms me when everything else fails.
My fingers clench on the wheel as sound floods in again, passenger door opening and Tori sliding in, shutting it quietly behind her. "I can't, Jade."
I glance over at her, her bag clutched to her, eyes staring straight ahead, limbs held close like she's scared I'll bite one off.
"I can't forget that you... that you f-fucked me, Jade. How can you? How you can pretend that didn't happen? We need to talk about this. It's tearing me apart."
My hands drop off the wheel, curling into claws against my jeans. "You wanna know how I pretend, Tori?" I hiss, teeth gritted. "I act. Remember what that is? It's what we're at this fucking school to do. I act like nothing ever happened in that bathroom, because that's what I need to do. That's the role I need to play, okay? And you should play along Tori, because this isn't your fucking play, it's mine, and you are not going to fuck it up for me."
Tori's face is flushed, nostrils flaring, and she sweeps her hair back roughly, fingers sliding through brunette locks. "That's not fair, Jade. You can't just expect me to play in your little game. You can't just do what we did and pretend it never happened. It doesn't work that way. You can only pretend for so long and then you have to deal with it. You told me to grow up? This isn't growing up. You don't run away from your problems and pretend they never happened, you deal with them. And this is a huge problem that I'm sick of looking away from. We have to talk ab-"
"You didn't care about talking when I was fucking you, did you Tori? You didn't ask questions then, did you? So why are you doing it now? Just let it go." I snarl, hand jerking onto the gearstick.
"I can't." Tori grabs my wrist, yanking me towards her. Her lips clash into mine, kiss hard and desperate, and I wonder if she'd been planning this, if she'd been thinking about this since the moment she saw me walking towards my car, or if this is a spur of the moment thing, brought on by frustration and anger. Either way, I find myself responding, relishing the anger in it, the desperation. There's something satisfying about degrading Vega, about making her break and whine for you, something delicious about stirring all that black silt in her heart that lies dormant, and swirling it into her blood. There's something gratifying about bringing her down to my level. And there's something torturous in realising that I want her too. There shouldn't be desperation in my kiss as well, but there is. There shouldn't be relief.
I nip at her lip, Tori parting them in surprise, and it's all too easy, all too practised to slip my tongue in to caress hers. It feels too good when Tori's hands scrape my ribs, crawling inside my shirt. It's too satisfying to tug her closer, to pant into her ear, and claw at her soft skin.
It's too easy to clamber into the back seat, fingers fumbling with the buttons to my jeans. Nothing about this is right, nothing about this is what I should want. I thought I dealt with this little crush on her, this little longing. I thought I got it all out when I fucked her the first time. But I can't deny the pooling heat in my stomach, the transparent feeling of my flushed skin. I can't deny that seeing Tori's lips swollen, her cheeks flushed, her chest heaving, makes me want to fuck her all over again. To be pressed against her, making her moan. And it pisses me off that I want this. That I can't stop myself even if I wanted to.
"You still wanna talk about this, Tori?" I taunt, as Tori climbs into the back seat with me, tongue running out over her lips.
"Why can't you treat me like a fucking person?"
I smirk at the curse word that slips out of Tori's mouth, fingertip tickling her chin, guiding her to my lips. It's a sharp, bitter kiss, and I break it cruelly. "Because you're nothing to me, Tori." The words burn as they escape, followed by a gasp as her teeth sink into my neck, bruising the skin.
She fuels her anger into sharp little nips, pattering the skin. She grunts as I force a hand down her shorts, her voice bleeding into her short gasps as I work my fingers over the front of her panties, strokes rough and uneven, wrist cramping. "Why can't you like me?" She sobs against my throat, cooling the damp skin, little spots starting to throb painfully where she's broken the skin.
I ignore her, breaking her shaking limbs out from under her, forcing her onto her back while she bucks beneath me, and I know it can't be comfortable. I don't want it to be. I want her to hurt, I want her to have this discomfort distracting her from the pleasure I'm going to eke out of her. I want her offbalance, because she should never feel comfortable with me. She should feel the same way I have to feel around her. If she's so concerned with fairness, she should know how fucking annoyed, how fucking scared, how fucking tempted I am whenever I see her. If Beck's the pleasure then Tori's the discomfort, always niggling at me, always distracting me from what I try to focus on.
I hook my hands in the hem of her shorts, working the tight denim down, panties going with it, and I wonder if the leather's cold against her, or if it's flesh-warm from the fading sun. I wonder if she even notices. Her eyes are wide, hips raised, and it's a pathetic sight, to see her wanting me, waiting for me. And I wonder briefly if it's just as pathetic that I can't leave her like this, that I can't break this thing I don't want off. That despite everything I've said, all the pretending, all the suppressing I've done, it's a relief to kiss her again, to touch her again. That despite how wrong I tell myself it is, despite how much I try to convince myself that it's not what I want, it still feels so right. And maybe if I let myself sink into it, if I didn't fight it so hard, my touches would be gentle, my kisses would be soft, and I'd savour every inch of her skin. But I can't. This rightness that's so wrong twists in my skin, rots me from the inside, seeps into my blood like a poison. It turns my caresses into pinches, my kisses into bites, my loving whispers into barbed taunts, because I hate this. I hate these conflicting feelings and I hate that she makes me feel them. I hate that she gives in so easily to me, I hate that she feels the same way. I'm all filled with hate, because the love makes me sick. I need the hate to survive. Because I can't love her, that's too much.
I skip the foreplay; that's never what this was about. My fingers force themselves into her roughly, and she's already so wet. I wonder if she's embarrassed by that, how wet she gets. I wonder if it feels like a betrayal from her body. Has it been building since we started talking?
I twist my fingers roughly, leaning down to whisper in her ear, Tori letting out a choked moan. "Hey Tori, I'm fucking nothing." I thrust into her again roughly, letting out a low laugh. "Get it?"
Her hips buck against me, eyes flickering shut, but I see the muscle in her cheek twitch. I know she heard me. I wonder if that eats at her pleasure too, if it drags away from it. Maybe it makes it better, to have these little barbs digging into her. Maybe it reminds her exactly who it is that's fucking her.
Tori's back arches up against me, shirt falling back, wrinkling under her ribs and exposing her tan stomach, slopes outlined by her tensed muscles. I lean forward, going to kiss her, but she turns her head to the side, my lips grazing her cheek instead. "It's not fair." She whispers through gritted teeth, and my fingers stutter in their motions, soaked with her, as her thumbs hook themselves in my undone jeans, working the material down past my hips. Whatever backbone there is in her, whatever steel rod of control that remains unbroken inside her is acting, is resisting this pleasure, and it should be overwhelming her, her eyes should be flickering closed, her teeth should be sinking into her lip, she should be moaning my name uncontrollably by now. But instead her hand is worming over my stomach, slipping into the gap she's left, working my jeans down just enough to give her access. My stomach shivers as her fingers dip into me, delving down and forcing themselves in, and I struggle to keep the moan that wants to escape me withheld. This isn't right. I'm supposed to be the one in control. I shouldn't-
I let out a soft moan, arm that supports me above her trembling, and she silences me with a kiss, breaths broken by our hot lips. "I just-" A hard thrust. "Wanted-" A gasp. "You-" A soft kiss. "To like me."
I can't stop myself from moving my hips forward, thrusting into her hand, needing her deeper, harder, faster, more, more, more. It's running up my spine and shaking my muscles and it shouldn't feel this good when it's not Beck, it shouldn't. I'm supposed to be the one doing this. She's supposed to be helpless. It's me who's filling her heart with silt, not her threading mine with gold. It's topsy turvy and hot and sweating, and Tori repeats her sentence brokenly, gasping with shards of voice in her breath, and then she's cut off entirely as she shudders, a sound like a sob ripped from her, and I half expect to hear tears in her broken lungs, half expect to see blood dotting her lips from this wound I keep widening.
And then it's my body betraying me, panting, "Please, Tori, harder." And every taunt and cruel tone is stripped from my voice, robbed by this need to just have her fuck me. It's Tori, and she's nothing, but it shouldn't feel this good when it's nothing. I shouldn't want this so badly. I shouldn't even be letting her touch me. It's easy to forget when you're not the one being touched. It's better that way. You can even tell yourself it's not cheating, after all, they're not doing anything with you. You're just doing something with them. But this... I can't forget this, and Tori knows it. That's why she's doing it. It's not fair. It's not fair she's the only one who can't pretend. It's not fair she's the only one being taunted and toyed with. It's not fair that I get to be in control. I always make the mistake of thinking she's spineless, just because she's sweet. There's something hard in her, that I've just come across with a clang.
She's watching almost dispassionately as I come with a shudder, vulnerability staining my voice, in every pant, every stifled moan as my muscles twitch and my hips keep thrusting, even as her hand slows. As it dies, this feeling comes over me. This horrible, aghast feeling. Not embarrassment, not shame. Not even guilt. No, this is a realisation.
Tori's something. She's something, and I can't deny that anymore. Not when I'm coating her hand and she's slick on mine.
I scramble back, tugging my jeans back up, and Tori's the calm one now. Like she took something from me, drank it from my lips, ripped it from me, and it strengthened her even as it weakened me. She lifts her hips, dragging her shorts up and buttoning them. She sits up, sliding to the door on her side, grey leather sticking to her thighs.
She opens it softly, a little hint of a smile on her lips as she glances back at me. "Nothing happened, right?" There's weariness in her voice, weariness and a hint of humour, like she saw all this coming from the beginning, from the moment she decided to stay behind and wait for me.
I nod at her unsteadily, running a tongue over my lips. "Nothing happened." The phrase doesn't comfort me like it should.
The door closes with a thunk, and then she's gone. I keep underestimating Tori. I keep thinking she's some weak girl, just because she gives in to my manipulations. Even when she strikes back, it's in self defence, not retaliation. But you can only push someone so far. She's got the power now. She's made me come, she's made me shiver, she's made me beg her to please, please touch me. And all of a sudden what was a fun, albeit risky game, has turned into something far more serious. And perhaps what's worst of all, part of me relishes that. To have that control wrested away from me.
Tori's something. All she wants is for me to like her. And she's succeeded. I like her far too much to ever admit. To her, to myself. She's got me, and she knows it now. I need her just as much as she needs me. It's incredibly dangerous. She can hurt me. She's got a hold of my heart, and maybe she doesn't realise to what extent. This game is far from over. It's still too enjoyable. Part of me wants to see whether Tori will tear me apart, or whether she'll hold me close and beg for me to love her. I'm not sure which I'd prefer. Either way is going to be bittersweet. It's not up to me how this game ends anymore. Tori's not just a pawn now.
A/N: You know what I love? More than a gentle summer's breeze, recreated by an air conditioner because lol I'm not going outside, what are you? More than seeing a puppy bound across my television screen, with floppy ears and what I assume is a wet nose (my tv isn't HD. I guess at the puppy's state of health)?
Why reviews of course! They're like christmas without the family, so... perfect, in other words. Except I'm reverse santa, taking the presents of words away from you children, back to my cold fortress (my air conditioner is strong).
So, please, think of reverse santa. Look in your heart, and leave a review under the tree.
