Title: Confined Spaces
Summary: When Tori and Jade get trapped in the janitor's closet after school they learn a little bit about each other. Can they become friends, or even something more?
Pairing: Jade West/Tori Vega
Request by anon: Write about Jade and Tori trapped in a small space together. Like an elevator or something.
Rated: T
Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious
The best part of filming this movie was going to be that we were going on a field trip to do it, spending five days in the woods around Beck's cabin just filming and having fun. Packing for that, however, was a pain in the ass. I had one suitcase filled with clothes and another sitting on my bed with things I may need, like a bathing suit, two extra sets of clothes, things to sleep in and two jackets, one for me and an extra in case someone forgot there's.
Once it was full I added my makeup bag, my chargers, my laptop and two of my song books into the mix and zipped it closed, hauling it off my bed and onto the floor next to the other one and then I shimmied into a pair of sweatpants and put a pair of socks on, my shoes were downstairs already. I grabbed the suitcases and carried them as quietly as possible down the stairs. It was about four in the morning, but we had to be there by seven and Jade was also picking up Cat.
Trina was the only other person awake, our parents having gone to bed around two or so. We'd left notes reminding them we were out for filming, though Trina was actually going to be staying with her boyfriend, and now she helped me get my things out of the house quietly so they wouldn't wake up. Jade was already outside waiting, her trunk open while she stayed in the warmth of her car. We quickly dropped my bags into her trunk and then I walked Trina down to her boyfriend's car and hugged her goodbye before darting up to Jade's and slipping inside, enjoying the heat of her car.
"Morning, Vega." Jade greeted, holding out a cup off coffee to me. I held it between my clasped hands and let the warmth seep into my palms. Once Trina's boyfriend backed out Jade followed in suit, heading slowly toward Cat's house. She was outside with her Nona, two pink suitcases sitting at her feet.
She added them to the trunk, hugged her Nona goodbye and slipped in the backseat, quietly buckling her seatbelt and waving goodbye, "can we stop to get some hot chocolate?" Cat asked, "It's freezing out here."
"Sure." Jade yawned, pulling out of the driveway and turning left, her eyes focused blankly on the road in front of her, one hand on the wheel, the other twirling a piece of hair around her finger absently. She was nervous. Very nervous.
I wanted to reach over pat her arm reassuringly or say something to calm her down, but with Cat sitting right there I just couldn't bring myself to speak so I sat sipping my coffee and staring out at the street and the smoke curling up behind the car in the side mirror. We pulled up outside Jetbrew and stared up at the line in the driver thru.
"I'll run in. You need more coffee?" Cat offered, sliding toward the door.
"Please. Two sugars." Jade replied without taking her eyes off of whatever focus point she'd picked.
"Tori?"
"No, I'm good." I whispered, glancing at Jade.
Cat slipped out and rushed inside, leaving us to sit silently with the car idling with a dull rumble to remind us it was still on. I wanted to ask her how she was feeling, if she was nervous, let her know that it'd be okay, but I just couldn't. Instead I slowly reached over and slipped my hand into hers, she slipped her fingers in the spaces between mine. I rubbed my thumb across the back of her hand.
I used my other hand to take a sip of my coffee and tried to ignore the tingling sensation I felt shooting up my arm and the weird sensation deep in my stomach like I was at the top of a roller coaster waiting for the huge drop. I wasn't a big fan of that feeling or what it implied. Jade hastily dropped my hand when Cat came out the door gripping her steering wheel with white knuckles.
This little crush was getting really out of hand.
When we finally reached the cabin Jade parked between Andre and Beck's car and we carried our things over to the house, setting them inside among the other bags already piled inside. Cat instantly bounded over to the makeup area to set up her station while Jade and I wandered over to the kitchen where Beck and Andre were talking to a few girls and Jade broke away to go join their conversation.
I leaned back and watched her while sipping my coffee, how did this happen? When Jade and I became friends she was just supposed to be a friend, someone who knew and shared my secret. But I was not supposed to have a damn crush on her.
"Hey Tori." A voice I didn't recognize called. I turned my head toward the voice and smiled when I met Caroline's gaze, "Sikowitz is letting me tag along this weekend so I can get a better feel for my song as long as I record the entire experience." She waved a camera.
"Cool." I grinned, she leaned against the counter.
"Yeah I guess, but I don't know anybody in here. I don't want anyone to hate me because I'm shoving my camera in their faces." She mumbled, staring down at the thing like it was poisonous. Sighing I nudged her gently with my hip, a smile on my face.
"Chin up, Care, you can follow me around the whole time we're here. Like it's a vlog or something. That way you won't really annoy anyone." I grinned at her.
"Except maybe Jade." She motioned discreetly toward Jade who was glaring in our direction.
"Jade will be fine." I emphasized the word with a pointed glare and gently grabbed Caroline's arm, directing her out of the room to find the others, "hey guys!" I greeted brightly, the others grinned at me, "this is Caroline, Sikowitz is making her film all of our days here."
"Cool." Emmett commented, pushing his dyed white-blonde hair out of his face, "I'm Emmett, this is Sadie, Heather and Mark." He pointed at each in turn, "We're part of the werewolf pack."
Caroline nodded, "so I think its time you turn on the camera, because day one starts now." I laughed, and we walked around, me leading her and talking, introducing people we passed, and avoiding the kitchen until the very end when I cautiously tucked my head around the corner. Beck and Jade were standing inside, "and here we have the talented writer of the script, Jade, who will be playing Neva, and Beck who will be playing Xavier."
"Really a camera?" Jade snapped.
"Sikowitz wanted her to film the project." I replied with a shrug, finding Caroline's hand and dragging her behind me and out of the room as fast as possible, clearly I was wrong about Jade being okay, until filming started she'd probably be ultra ganky.
"Jade! Make up!" Sikowitz bellows. I winced, clapping my hand to my ear. She stormed past us, glowering at the camera before disappearing into the living room where they'd set up for makeup, "Toro!"
Rolling my eyes I motioned for Caroline to follow me and bounced over to the makeup area where Sikowitz was sitting, "I thought Cat was doing my makeup?" I glanced at the chair Jade was occupying. She was glaring at her reflection.
"She was but we're going to have Eli do it. Sit." Rolling my eyes again I sat down in the chair in front of Eli, Jade was sitting beside us in Cat's chair texting furiously while Caroline let the camera roll on my transformation, sitting beside me and looking around awkwardly. Nobody spoke because everyone was watching Jade who stormed off right after Cat finished. I wanted to go after her but I couldn't.
The chatter picked up right after that, everyone talking and laughing loudly, filling the small space with life once again. Once I was done I got up, leaving Caroline with the makeup group to get shots of all of the makeovers while I went to find Jade. It took me forever to find her, and when I did she was by the lake with Beck.
I wasn't near enough to them to hear what they were saying but he had one hand on her shoulder and she was standing with her arms hanging by her sides, chewing on her lip, I slowed down, not sure if I should intrude or not, but when Beck leaned down and kissed Jade softly on the lips three things happened.
My heart felt like someone grabbed it in their fist, my stomach dropped straight down into a pit and a spun so fast I almost slipped on the leaves as I ran back the way I'd came, circling around the house and over to the car, sinking against it and sliding down out of sight.
Cat must've seen me because soon she was kneeling in front of me, Cat's brown eyes filled with concern "is everything okay?" Cat whispered.
"Y-yeah." I mumbled, blinking slowly, fighting the strange burning tears welling up into my eyes, "yeah sorry there was just so much going on I was kind of…"
"Tori?" Jade's voice called from somewhere back near the house, "Vega!"
"Is my makeup okay?" I sniffled, blinking furiously. Cat nodded, reaching forward to wipe a smear off of my face before smiling and standing up, hauling me up to my feet with her, which was admittedly probably easy. I brushed off the back of my jeans and smoothed out my hair with shaking hands. I exhaled slowly.
"Yeah?" I replied, turning toward her, "something wrong? Need to stop you from yelling at someone?"
"No, I just saw you run off?"
"Sorry felt a little nauseous, didn't wanna puke with everyone in here." I shrugged, "I'm okay now, Cat had a mint." I grinned and walked around the car toward Jade, brushing past her and into the house in search of Caroline, anyone to distract me from thinking about that reaction.
Instead I ran into Beck.
"Hey, you okay? We were looking for you." Beck said, staring pointedly down at me.
"I felt like I was going to puke and I didn't want to puke in front of everyone." I repeated my earlier lie, staring straight into his eyes. He shrugged and accepted it without question, "anyways I'm gonna go find Caroline."
He nodded and let go of my shoulder, as soon as he did I took off as quickly as possible into makeup where Caroline was standing awkwardly in a corner looking around. Grinning I walked over to her leaning against the wall "so get all your transformations filmed?"
"Yeah. I don't know what I should do next?"
"Follow the rest of us to the first scene we're shooting out here." I grinned, walking with her into a smaller room that had been redecorated to feel like more of a fairytale house. Jade, Robbie and one of the other acting teachers would be filming the first scene where Neva finds out that Ruby still hasn't returned home. I found us a good spot behind the camera to watch and get some footage, staring pointedly at the wall behind the actors and not at them.
"I've got good footage for this." Caroline whispered between takes.
"Cool, we've gotta go set up for the next scene while they finish in here. Come on." I stood up and walked out, hoping she'd follow behind me. Beck, Andre and Emmett stood by the door waiting, I grabbed my bag from the ground with my costume in it and we followed the second set of film students out to the spot in the woods.
Sikowitz was already outside, setting up a small area off screen for all of us to change into what we'd be wearing, "Ladies to that side, gentleman to the other." Sikowitz ordered. After Caroline secured her lens on the camera we circled behind the screen where Sadie and Heather were staring at their outfits.
"Man we're gonna look like a band of pirates." Sadie grumbled.
"Sexy pirates." Heather countered with a grin, rolling her eyes and tugging off her shirt, pulling a light blue tunic over her head. I rolled my eyes and tossed my bag into a chair, pulling my shirt off and folding it up on another chair, tugging a maroon tunic over my head. It was slightly baggy and a bit weird to wear.
"Maybe Cat will be able to make a few improvements. I know we're exiled an all but this is just weird."
"I heard my name!" Cat sing-songed coming around the corner, her smile vanished instantly and she clucked her tongue, "it's all wrong." And in a few minutes we were all sitting around in robes while Cat adjusted everything.
"Man I've never seen her so pissed in my life." Heather chuckled; Sadie and I nodded in agreement. Caroline had been roped into assisting Cat while we held a camera on her, she was doing a decent job avoiding Cat's manic swinging and direction changing. She was pretty dangerous when she was on a mission.
"Why is everyone sitting around doing nothing?" Jade's voice was a hiss as she swung around the change screen. The other two girls stiffened, I curled my nails into the palm of my hand and turned to face her.
"Cat had to make some adjustments to our costumes. They were too loose and weird." I replied, "you o-."
"Tori, I'm done, come try this on." Cat snapped. I rolled my eyes and got up, shedding the robe and tugging on the shirt that was no righter around my middle and was loose around my hips and bust, "Jade does this look okay? I was thinking maybe adding a corset to them."
Jade's eyes scrutinized the outfit from the tight shirt to the battered pants that stopped at my knees, "yes to the corset, just make sure it matches the shoes." She managed to find a corset that matched our boots, which went up our calves with small heels.
"How the hell did you guys manage to find all of these outfits? I thought you were going to make them?"
"I made Jade's dress, but it was too big of a project so my teacher is just judging us on makeup. Robbie's mom is a costume designer and she had a few things left over that she leant to our project." Cat filled in, "She's pretty nice. Most of the time." She finished tying up Sadie's corset, "just gotta touch up your makeup and we're good to go." She beamed, pushing everyone into chairs to fix their makeup.
By the time she was done it was almost 8 am and the sun was finally peaking into the sky, and Beck, Andre and Emmett found their places and we all stood off to the side watching Jade's carriage roll in, we had no clue how Sikowitz had gotten is hands on it, but it looked amazing inside and out, and some horses borrowed from Sadie's farm, completed it.
"Alright, again, from the top."
"Seriously?" Andre groaned, rolling his eyes and moving back to his starting mark. I sighed and sagged back against my chair, my eyes turning to Jade who looked like she was ready to murder someone.
"Well when Jade quits acting like Jade we can get a decent shot."
"Sikowitz maybe we should take a bit of a break." I suggested, Andre and Beck nodded in agreement. With a sigh Sikowitz waved his hand in the air and walked off, picking a cocoanut from the table before he disappeared beyond some trees.
Jade stalked off in the other direction the best she could in her skirts, Beck looked after her but then pushed his fingers through his hair and looked away. Glancing at Caroline, who as involved in a conversation with Cat, I slipped out of my chair and followed her.
"Jade! You're going to rip your dress!" I hissed, watching her try to pull herself up the cliff that we'd found on our trip out, "Jade!" she glanced back at me while moving her grip and slid off, landing on her ass with a loud thud and a grimace.
"Don't you dare say a word." She warned when I kneeled in the dirt beside her, she was digging her nails into the dirt, pointedly not looking to me.
"Why are you having such a hard time filming?" I asked, my eyes searching her face for the answer. She refused to look at me, instead pushing herself to her feet.
"I don't need you in my business, Vega." She snapped. I reeled back, stumbling back to my feet.
"What is your damn problem?" I hissed, narrowing my eyes at her angrily.
"It's none of your damn business, just fuck off Vega." With that she pulled herself up and over the ledge marching away, her skirts swishing through the dirt as her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides.
"Fuck you, Jade." I yelled, watching her steps falter before I spun on my heel and marched back toward the set, "she's off doing god knows what, we should probably just move onto another scene." I told Sikowitz, anger burning through my veins. It was perfect for filming the few scenes that didn't include her.
Jade didn't come back until we were wrapping up and I didn't get to say a word to her because as soon as she showed up Cat started in on her about potentially wrecking the dress Cat had slaved over for a week, "so glad its finally done with for the night." I groaned, happily dropping down on the dock beside Caroline, swinging my feet into the cold lake, "those shoes are killer."
"They looked cute though." Caroline laughed, handing me a bottle of water.
It didn't take long after Sikowitz crawled into his van for the night for someone to drag out a radio and beer and for swim suits to emerge. Everyone was having a good time, except for Jade who was curiously absent from the party, while Caroline and I sat on the edge of the dock talking and sipping from our beers.
"So what happened with Jade today?" Caroline asked, "I saw you go after her and you looked really angry when you got back."
"She wouldn't say, but it's not my job to worry about her, she's not my girlfriend." I replied casually, noticing my slip up seconds later.
"That's good." Caroline teased, "cause I'd feel really awkward about this if she was." and before I knew it she leaned over and kissed me quickly, her soft lips burning against mine before she turned away, looking down at her lap. I leaned over and turned her head toward me, kissing her. Her lips were soft and gentle but it felt the same way to kiss her as it felt kissing Beck in plays. It didn't feel anything like it felt to kiss Jade.
Caroline pulled away, biting her lip, "I'm sorry, Caroline."
"No, I really shouldn't have." She whispered, "I'm sorry Tori I just thought-."
"It's not you." I replied, "It's me, I'm just feeling a lot of different things right now, I'm sorry."
"It's okay. But I feel weird now, so I'm just gonna…" she motioned toward the water and slipped in, swimming away from me. I sighed and dropped back against the dock, resting the beer can against the now exposed part of my stomach which caused goosebumps to shoot across my skin.
"So, that looked like it went well." Andre told me sarcastically.
"Oh yeah, totally." I replied, glancing over at his hip where he was sat beside me.
"Well that's too bad. Come dance with me. I lost Cat and this is your favorite song."
"No its not." I replied.
"I don't care. Lets go, chica." Rolling my eyes I pushed myself up onto my feet and trailed after Andre off the dock and closer to the radio pumping out the music, quickly losing myself to the music, blissfully unaware of most of the people around me. Most importantly Jade.
Around 1 am we all started to wind down and people started picking up trash and setting up tents. Beck was already in his RV, where Robbie was sleeping on the floor, and Cat was setting up the tent she was going to share with Caroline, which is when I remembered who I'd be sharing with.
"Andre, can't I just share with you."
"As much as I'd love to spare you, Sikowitz made one rule clear." He kissed the side of my head and wandered off to help Emmett pitch their tent while I went and found the tent Jade and I would be sharing and set it up. By the time I was done Jade was still MIA and I couldn't find it in me to care, she knew what her tent looked like and where our spot was, as close to the house as possible, so I settled down and wrapped around my pillow hoping to fall asleep fast.
I managed to find sleep pretty quickly, but a few hours later I woke up realizing the space beside me was still empty. Sighing I adjusted my clothes and crawled out of the tent in search of Jade, happy someone had thought to put out the solar lamps so I could weave my way down to the lake where I found Jade perched on the dock beside the water with her script book in her hands.
I walked up and sat down, leaning against the post opposite her and waited for her to finish whatever she was working on, staring at the reflection of the moon on the lake with my head resting on the post, "I'm sorry." Jade mumbled.
"It's okay," I mumbled, "you okay now?"
"It's whatever." She replied, staring down at her script. I bumped her hip with my foot, causing her to look up, "seriously, drop it."
"No." I replied, "that's what friendship means, I don't care if you don't want to tell me but you've gotta give me something."
"Why? You don't-." she bites her tongue and closes her script, setting it aside roughly, "why do you even care?"
"Because you're my friend, Jade." I sat forward, narrowing my eyes at her.
"So?" she challenged, sitting forward as well.
"Quit being so damn stubborn. This is why you have no friends." I hissed.
"Maybe I don't want friends."
"So you want me to leave?"
"No." she whispered, shifting so her legs were no longer against her chest, instead she was sitting with them cross in front of her.
"Well then what do you want Jade? I'm not a fucking mind reader." I growled, now realizing how close we'd gotten while we were yelling at each other, our hands were a few inches apart, I could feel her hot breath fanning across my lips. I licked my lips nervously, my eyes flickering from her eyes down to her soft lips and back up, I swallowed nervously. Too close.
Her skin looked so soft, like velvet, and so pale in the bright moonlight, her eyes seemed glow even brighter than usual, a piece of her hair had fallen into her face and she just looked so damn perfect, almost inhumanely so. I hated her for that.
My tongue darted out to lick my suddenly dry lips, I needed to move back, put some space between me and those beautiful blue eyes. Before I could pull back she leaned forward, her hand cupping the back of my neck, dragging me closer as she leaned in and kissed me roughly. My heart leapt in my chest and my stomach danced with a thousand humming birds as I leaned closer, cupping her cheek in my free hand, her skin was so soft and warm.
She pulled away for a brief second, our eyes locking as we both breathed in and out slowly. I moved in this time, tipping my head up and pulling her back down into another kiss, her lips setting my veins on fire and making my heart explode in my chest.
Her fingers tangled in my hair, her teeth gently capturing my bottom lip in a playful bite that made my stomach twist and a moan escaped my mouth as she broke away only to push me back on the dock and lean down, capturing my mouth in a fiery kiss once more, my fingers twisting in the front of her shirt and dragging her down on top of me, desperate to get her as close as possible.