Disclaimer: a. I don't own Victorious. b. I know I promised Beck returning, he's in the next chapter which I'm posting right now.
Chapter 10: It's Who You Travel With
How she got suckered into watching this movie she'll never know. She's lying on Cat's bed under a pink and orange duvet surrounded by other blankets and stuffed animals. Everything is so bright and cheerful it makes her head hurt. Cat is sitting beside her totally engrossed in the movie. Only paying attention to Jade when it's scary and she hides her face in Jade's shoulder. Jade is contemplating how much longer she can stand this dumb movie with talking animals. And then with the song that Cat starts singing along to, she remembers why she let Cat talk her into it after explicitly declaring no Disney.
Jade grabs Cat's stuffed black and white dog and holds it up to herself.
"I think you'll make a lovely coat," she coos playfully, peeking to see if Cat is paying attention now. Cat is still staring at the screen.
"I think I'll need to take some other puppies too though," she says a bit louder.
"What?" Cat asks her head snapping up to look at Jade.
"Hush, I'm making my winter coat out of puppies not cats. Don't worry," Jade snipes.
"Jadey," Cat frowns, "give him back".
"Never," Jade declares hopping up from her place on the bed.
Cat gets up too and makes a grab for the puppy. Jade laughs and jumps on the bed, shooting out of her reach.
"Jadey," Cat whines, "he doesn't want to be a coat, he wants to be my puppy".
Jade just shakes her head and bounces again. Cat reluctantly pauses the movie, clearly negotiating is going to take longer than she thought.
"I'll get you popcorn," Cat offers.
Jade stops jumping and looks at her, "Really?" she asks suspiciously.
Cat snatches the stuffed animal away, "No you're being mean," she huffs, turning away from Jade.
At this Jade falters, she thought they'd been messing around.
Cat turns back to her and sticks her tongue out, "Just kidding, you can have some if you can catch me!" she shouts racing out the door.
It takes Jade a second to realize Cat was playing around too and then she's running behind her. "I'll get you my pretty and your little dog too!" she yells chasing after Cat.
Jade let's out a cackle as she slides into the kitchen.
"Wrong movie!" Cat snaps back, darting behind the island.
Jade falters when she can't remember any of Cruella de Vil's lines, she wasn't actually paying attention to the baby movie. Chasing Cat around the island instead she hums then segues into singing, "Cruella De Vil, Cruella De Vil. If she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will".
"She doesn't sing that song!" Cat says in frustration sliding past Jade and hopping on to the counter. Jade stops to make sure she doesn't fall and split her head open.
"Why do you always have to be the bad one?" Cat grumbles jumping down from the counter and heading towards the microwave.
Jade opens the package for her and pops it in, "'Cause you're always the good one, that's how it works. You need both".
Cat isn't sure if she agrees or not, "In Wicked the Wicked Witch of the West isn't really bad".
"You haven't actually seen the musical yet. Clearly she turns bad for the Wizard of Oz," Jade counters.
"Or she was just joking and nobody realized and then Dorothy melted her on accident," Cat answers bouncing on her toes as she waits for the popping to stop.
"Or she was going to unleash her killer monkeys on all of Oz to kill them all," Jade responds proud of her quick thinking.
"Only for killing her sister by dropping a house on her," Cat sighs, "Dorothy was mean, I don't wanna be her anymore".
Jade knows she's referring to when they "play pretend" or as Jade now calls it "acting".
"Then don't be, you're way more of a Glinda anyway. Even if you can imitate Judy Garland freakishly well."
Cat smiles and dumps the popcorn into a bowl, "You can do her voice pretty good too. I love Glinda, she's magic and has sparkly pink clothes".
Jade snatches a handful of popcorn and shoves it into her mouth, "whatever".
"We can see Wicked together if it ever comes to L.A.," Cat giggles.
Jade just nods, relieved Cat isn't making her apologize to the toy dog.
"Let's go finish the movie," Cat insists, tugging on her wrist.
Jade grabs a bag of M&Ms and allows herself to be accosted.
"She build up a world of magic because her real life was tragic." -Unknown
"Come on Cat, we're gonna be late," Jade yells pounding on the bathroom door.
"I'm not ready yet," Cat calls back.
Jade purses her lips in frustration, "My mom's going to be here in 10 minutes".
Jade smooths down her turquoise blue dress and checks her face in the mirror. Her long brown hair has been straightened and Cat applied her charcoal grey eye shadow. Afterward, Cat did her own makeup and she said she was leaving her hair curly so Jade doesn't know what's taking so long.
"Hurry up!" Jade shouts, "I'm going to wait downstairs".
Cat sniffs and raises her head from her knees. She is currently sitting on the bathroom floor with her back against the bathtub. Her light pink dress is spread around her, a beaded top that flowed into a tulle bottom. Her hair is a mess of wild brown curls parted to one side.
"Cat?" Jade calls out annoyed when there is no response.
"Okay," Cat manages to eek out, holding back tears.
"Hey, why don't you let me in," Jade says softly after getting an okay instead of a kay-kay.
After a moment of silence, Jade tries again, "I'm," she pauses and screws up her face looking pained, "I'm sorry for whatever I did".
Cat draws her knees up to her chest and takes a shaky breath trying to keep Jade from hearing her.
"Cat, come on. Don't be like this. I apologized and everything," Jade moans.
Cat feels guilty now. Jade didn't do anything. Not this time anyway. Slowly she gets up and opens the door.
Jade takes in her appearance and stays quiet.
"It's not you," Cat sighs, "I just wish somebody was actually going to see me preform".
"There'll be a whole audience to see you," Jade encourages, knowing that isn't what she means.
Cat gives her a look and her lip wobbles.
"I'll be there to see you, and my mom, Andre, even Robbie," Jade reassures her.
Cat sticks her tongue out, "family, I mean".
"I think Robbie likes you," Jade teases, "maybe he'll be your family someday".
"Ew, Jade," Cat grimaces, "Boys are gross".
Jade nods, "Fix your makeup. I'll be right back".
She returns and links arms with Cat, giving her a small smile.
"You do care. You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it." -J.K. Rowling
Cat is twirling in her pink dress to show Andre how much it "floats". Jade thinks he's doing a good job pretending like he's watching while really going over chords, his finger moving along an invisible guitar.
They slide into seats in the front rows to watch the first half of the show. Then the second half they can hang out backstage until they go on. Jade shoves another child out the way and claims an aisle seat. Cat goes to sit beside her and she shoots Andre a pleading look, though she'd never admit that.
"Let me sit between my girls," he intervenes smoothly.
Jade figures he's done her a favor and ignores his "my girls" comment. Cat giggles and bounces on the velvet cushioned seat. Jade is trying to block everything out and go over the lyrics in her head for the 100th time. Andre's hands are now flying over invisible piano keys and Cat is gabbing to the girl beside her.
The curtain goes up and the first musical performance begins. Music is most popular at camp and is divided into two sections classical solos and original group pieces. Jade falls asleep to strains of Mozart on the piano and is rudely woken by Beethoven being screeched on a violin. Andre's looking annoyed and even Cat has her hands over her ears.
"How the chiz did he get in?" she growls to Andre.
He shrugs and hums to himself instead of listening to the butchered piece.
"That was Sinjin VanCleef," the announcer continues over roaring applause that the performance was finally over.
"Someone needs to tell him that is not his forte," Andre whispers back, smirking over his pun.
Jade rolls her eyes, "He looks like a tech geek. He should do lights instead. Much better behind the scenes."
"Little harsh," Andre frowns.
"That's me," Jade shrugs closing her eyes again.
"Jadey!" Cat calls out loudly less than a minute later. Jade's eyes fly open as Andre shushes her. The row of kids in front of them has turned around to see what's going on.
"Shhh!," Jade hisses, while giving the others a nothing to see here glare.
"But Robbie's on next," she whines, "you need to watch him before you take another nap".
Jade grits her teeth and nods reluctantly. She sits defiantly, arms crossed. 10 minutes of Robbie's dumb jokes with a weird puppet thing make her want to gouge her eyes out. Telling a puppet knock-knock jokes and pretending the stage is constantly slippery does not make a comedic scene.
Unfortunately the acts go downhill from there. The laughter, real or forced, is too loud for her to fall asleep to. Instead she busies herself with whispering harsh critiques to Andre. At first he tells her to "tone it down" but before long he's joined in. Cat is giving them her best "mean" face and watching earnestly. An hour of her life wasted on this.
Andre points out another mistake and laughs. Cat joins in unconsciously, her face flushing upon realizing she's "being mean" . Andre tells her it's okay because the people on stage can't hear her. Jade doesn't contradict him; it's more fun to make fun if Cat isn't complaining the whole time. She stays silent, so Cat nods in agreement.
They both look at Jade with the biggest mugging grins to get her to join in, she rolls her eyes at them and smirks.
"In life, it's not where you go- it's who you travel with" Charles Schulz
A/N: Hope you enjoyed!