Author Note: Hey there, Sports Fans! What's crackalacking in the hee-zay?
Yeah, I don't know what I was trying to say there.
I thought I was 'diggy down' with the kids.
But that was a lie.
I'm not 'down with the clique' in Aaliyah terms. That was cool af jam from the 90s.
Anyway, back to the story!
Disclaimer: I do not own Victorious or the zany characters from this hilarious show. If I did, lli
Robbie lurched up from his bed, his breath escaping his lungs with a sharp, rattling gurgle.
He felt like his sleep had been so deep, he must've been dead before this.
He gazed in awe at his pale hands, his eyes trailing over his arms to his red, white and blue Galaxy Wars onesie that he'd worn to bed the night before.
Galaxy Wars!
That meant…he wasn't in Northridge in the 1850s anymore. He was no longer working in and running the apple orchards of Valentine Farm and married to Cat.
It was 2013 and he was waking up in his own bed in his family home in the Hollywood Hills!
It had all been a dream.
Robbie could barely get his heart to stop thudding in his chest as he thought on the dream.
It had been so real, and far more vivid than his usual reality.
With shaking hands, he got out of bed and ran to his desk. He opened up his journal, containing all of his deepest thoughts which Rex often ridiculed him for. He took the nearest pen and began recounting every detail of the dream he could think of while it was still fresh in his mind.
It took a good 20 minutes of thinking and editing the things he remembered. But Robbie managed to get as many details down as possible before they slipped like grains of sand through the sieve of his own cluttered mind.
In the process of baring his soul to his journal, Robbie's thoughts inadvertently went to and remained on one red-haired girl that had captured his heart in reality and in his dreams.
Only this time, he was determined that she wouldn't get away without a fight.
"Rex, wake up! We have to get ready for school!" Robbie barked out on a sudden impulse.
"Slow your roll, Rob – it's only 5am!" Rex's muffled voice came from inside his drawer. "Your brain has turned to homemade chili if you think I'm going anywhere right now."
"Come on, buddy," Robbie urged in a winning voice. "I'll make it worth your while: I'll get you a breakfast burrito from 'BF Wangs' on our way to school…"
The drawer opened of its own accord and Rex poked his disheveled out.
"With the secret sauce too?" he asked in a would-be-casual voice.
"With as many packs of secret sauce that you can fit onto that burrito," Robbie promised.
After a quick shower, Robbie put on his clothes in a flurry, not giving much thought for his general appearance. Then he shoved a slice of toast into his mouth as he grabbed Rex and his backpack and ran out of his house.
It still took ages for him to pedal all the way to 'BF Wangs' in his 'eco-friendly car'. But he managed to get Rex his breakfast burrito with nearly 20 packs of secret sauce that the insolent puppet requested and a small orange juice for him to give himself a pick-me-up for the long journey ahead.
Robbie finally made it to school 30 minutes before first period was about to start. He only hoped that Cat was already at school too.
You could never tell on any given day whether Cat would be early or late for school.
Her one and only consistency was that she never seemed to arrive on time.
Robbie sprinted to his locker to grab his textbooks for his first class and take a cursory look in the mirror he'd taped on the back of his locker door to check his overall appearance.
"Dude, are you trying to make me asphyxiate?" Rex complained when Robbie grabbed a can of deodorant and shoved it inside his black and red golf shirt.
"What? I can't smell disgusting while talking to Cat! And this deodorant is very manly!" Robbie defended, wincing at the cold sensation of the deodorant on his warm armpits.
"As manly as a scent called 'Drifting into Dandelions' can get…"
"Hey, there's a picture of a very attractive man on the front!" Robbie fumed, pointing to the male model in question.
"Dandelion Dude's got a man bun!"
"I can't deal with this right now, Rex! Oh chizz, Cat's here!" Robbie exclaimed, his heart in his throat.
Sure enough, Cat had rounded the corner of the graffitied hallway and was walking towards the lockers with Tori, Andre, Beck and Jade in tow.
She was dressed in her signature royal blue dress that just covered her thighs and wearing a pair of glittering, white and pink high-tops.
As always, Cat was giggling at some comment that Tori had made, and she looked pretty damn fantastic doing it too in Robbie's eyes.
"This is gonna be better than yesterday. This is gonna be better than yesterday…" Robbie chanted repeatedly, stowing the deodorant in his locker and shutting it with a loud slam.
"What's gonna be better than yesterday? You're not seriously gonna ask Cat out again, are you?" Rex demanded incredulously.
"Not ask her out. But I might tell her I love her again, you know…if it comes up organically," Robbie explained in a would-be-casual tone.
"I should've skipped class today…" Rex mumbled to the hallway at large, shaking his head as Robbie stalked towards his group of friends.
"…and that's why my brother Rat can't tell time anymore." Cat was saying to Tori in a breathy murmur.
"All because he bungee jumped off of Big Ben without a rope 5 years ago?" Tori questioned, wrinkling her nose in confusion.
"No, he had a rope, but the instructor forgot to attach it to the harness…"
"Didn't your brother jump before the instructor guy could attach the harness?" Jade piped up with intrigue.
"Yeah, he did," Cat answered, ducking her head down self-consciously. "That poor man lost his job and ended up making the 'Tap It' app instead."
"Isn't that good though? It's an app and apps make a lot of money." Beck supplied, infusing his usual nonchalant positivity into the conversation.
"Usually they do. But 'Tap It' is a coupon app and the guy who made it earns all of his money back in coupons only…" Cap replied in a sad voice.
"Oh chizz, that's rough on a poor man's soul…" Andre trailed off bleakly.
"Hey, guys!" Robbie greeted his friends with a wave.
"Hey, Robbie," Tori, Andre and Beck greeted back nonchalantly.
"Your hair has extra volume today." Jade noted.
"Oh? Does that mean you like it?"
"Of course not, get a chizzing haircut!" Jade shrieked like a banshee.
Robbie noticed that Cat had failed to greet him back. She stood twirling a thick strand of her red hair around her finger, biting her bottom lip nervously and not making eye contact with him.
Maybe she was more affected by their conversation yesterday than she'd previously let on.
This caused Robbie to smile, giving him renewed courage.
"Hey, Cat. You look great today," he declared, hoping his voice sounded light and natural.
"Thanks, Robbie. You look nice too, even with your extra-voluminous hair." Cat offered, finally giving Robbie a small smile.
"I know we have class soon, but can I talk to you for a moment?"
"Um, I don't know, Robbie…Tori said she needs help choosing an improv topic for Sikowitz's class," Cat said hesitantly.
"That's ok, I can choose a topic on my own if you wanna talk to Robbie," Tori offered in a gracious voice.
"No, I don't! I don't wanna talk to Robbie, at least not right now!" Cat protested out nowhere, which stunned everyone.
None of her friends had ever seen her so clearly upset or reluctant to talk to anyone, least of all with Robbie and his many attempts to woo her.
"What's goin on with you, Lil' Red?" Andre asked in concern.
"Nothing! I just wanna go to class now instead of later! Sikowitz has probably turned on the airconditioning by now and I don't want the jellybeans in my bra to melt!"
"Girl, you need to invest in a candy purse or something more hygienic…" Rex offered in a sardonic tone.
"Cat, please. It's important," Robbie said, his eyes crinkling subtly with sadness.
He didn't want to make Cat feel any more uncomfortable around him than she already did. But he knew that he needed to say these things to her before he lost his nerve.
"Robbie, I really don't think you should do this now…" Beck attempted, already guessing at what his friend was about to do.
"Save it for Sesame Street, Aladdin!" Robbie retorted, cutting his friend short.
"Dang…" Andre murmured in awe.
Beck's eyes widened ever so slightly at Robbie's unexpected ferocity and it took the skinny boy of Jewish descent a moment to calm his ragged breathing.
He couldn't explain why he was so aggravated with the handsome teenage boy all of a sudden.
Perhaps some residual feelings of jealousy from his dream?
"Robbie, please don't do this…" Cat begged, looking very miserable as she spoke.
"Don't do what? What's going on?" Tori demanded, first glancing in concern at her kooky friend before glancing suspiciously back at Robbie.
"Oh please do this, Robbie, whatever the chizz this is. I ran out of data on my pearphone and you're going to entertain me for the next few minutes." Jade said with a wicked smile on her face.
Robbie held up an appeasing finger and moved closer to Cat while Jade hit the 'record' button on her phone. "Please hear me out, Cat. I only need to say this once to you, and you only need to hear it once. After that, you can do whatever you like and I'll try my best to move on from you romantically and stay good friends with you."
The fact that Cat was standing still and hadn't 'done a bunk' in Harry Potter terms was the most positive sign Robbie could conjure up in the moment. He took a deep breath and began what was sure to be a very long and complicated story.
"First, I want to apologise to you for the way I acted yesterday. Yes, I asked you out again and you said no again, which was your right to do. It hurt my feelings, but I didn't behave very maturely about it, and I'm sorry. I ended up having a pretty ganky day yesterday, but then I had a dream last night. It was the most confusing and wonderful dream I've ever had! I woke up in a bed in a farmhouse in Northridge…"
"Northridge? And you said this dream was wonderful?" Andre demanded in astonishment.
"It was like I went back in time, when Northridge was still a farming community and not the ganky neighbourhood it is now. And in this dream, you and I got married, Cat."
"You got what now?" Tori demanded, glancing rapidly between Cat and Robbie in horror.
"Anyone marrying Robbie sounds more like a nightmare instead of a dream," Jade put in, trying to be helpful at the wrong time.
"It was an arranged marriage, but we found a way to make it work. Cat…we fell in love, deeply in love. You even loved my guitar playing, so much so that you actually had sex with me!" Robbie proclaimed happily.
"Ew!" Tori shrieked in horror.
"Dude!" Andre protested.
"Urgh, I just threw up in my mouth," Jade said in a tone of revulsion.
"What? No, no, no, no!" Cat squealed, covering her ears at the mention of things that men and women did under the covers with the lights off.
"Robbie, why would you talk about 'S-E-X' in front of Cat?" Tori fumed, punching Robbie in the shoulder.
"Exactly! You don't even know how to zip up your own pants, much less please a girl in the bedroom!" Beck protested for no apparent reason.
"I'm sorry, that came out wrong!" Robbie apologized in earnest, rubbing the smarting bruise forming on his arm from Tori's punch. "It was actually more 'making love' than sex-"
"Oh my God, Robbie!"
"Boy, Cat is going to have you arrested for sexual ha-rass-ment! You will not like Northridge Prison – it's full of guys with scarred faces and thigh tattoos!" Rex chorused.
"I am very unhappy with this conversation…" Andre moaned, his face screwed up comically with real anguish.
"Robbie, you can't keep talking about gross stuff like this," Cat lamented, her cheeks turning several different shades of red. "I fainted the last time that someone told me babies come out of a woman's special place…" she added, shaking her head profusely as if to rid the images from her head.
"It's called your hoohah, Cat," Jade supplied, enjoying the unexpected turn in the conversation.
"Not helping, Jade," Tori snarled in an overprotective manner.
"Super unhelpful," Andre agreed. "In any case, I'm pretty sure 'hoohah' is a type of Spanish sausage…"
"And I'm pretty sure you just made that up," Beck supplied drolly.
Robbie's head started ringing with all the various interruptions from his friend. He needed to find a way to hone his narrative and focus it back on Cat somehow.
"Ok, let's skip that part. The point is, we were married and in love, we even had a cute son! And his nickname was 'Tug', which now I think about…is the name of the guy you brought to Prome." Robbie trailed off in dismay once he made the connection.
"Tell me, Rob: what does toe jam taste like now that you have a whole foot in your mouth?" Rex asked with his usual snarkiness.
"I forgot why we're all still standing here…" Beck said to the ceiling.
"So that we can witness Robbie emotionally face-plant in front of Cat for the umpteenth time and Rex can talk about toe-jam some more. Keep up, Beck," Jade explained in a patronizing tone, angling her pearphone so she could film a better angle of Robbie's face.
Robbie could tell that Cat was seconds away from losing the thread of his story, so he ploughed on with a little more lucidity than before.
"And then after I experienced what felt like my happiest existence in any life, the worst possible thing happened…" Robbie continued, his face turning somber as he spoke.
"Did you feed me to hungry dream children again?" Cat asked in dismay.
Robbie couldn't resist chuckling just a little at the arbitrary conclusion Cat had drawn about his story.
Her imagination truly was a wonder.
"No, it was worse! I got a brain tumour and didn't recover."
"Oh yeah, that's the stuff of good dreams right there…" Jade murmured in ecstasy.
"I'm concerned about your mental health," Tori quipped in Jade's direction.
"I am insane and I love it - deal with it, Vega!"
"It was really bad, Cat. I died…" Rob continued, feeling sincerely distressed about his own death, even if it had just been a dream.
"Robbie, no…" Cat trailed off, sounding genuinely saddened at the thought of Robbie not existing in any sense.
"It sucks that you died. But it was just a dream, bro." Beck tried in a soothing voice.
"Can it, Big Time Rush! You barely shook my hand like a gentleman when my end drew near!" Robbie fumed, rounding on a bewildered Beck.
"Why is Robbie picking on me today?" Beck asked quietly of Andre, who shrugged in turn.
"That wasn't the worst part though," Robbie went on, ignoring Beck again and turning his attention back to the red-haired beauty standing before him.
"Wait…it wasn't? Because that was the best part of this dumb story so far," Jade pointed out.
Everyone gasped in shock when Robbie reached out and took Cat's hands. Even more surprising than that was when Cat didn't retract, but let their fingers intertwine naturally as time went on, her eyes locked on Robbie.
"The worst part was knowing that I wouldn't see Tug grow up or being able to keep loving you. In my dreams and in my reality, you're the only girl I could ever love with my whole heart."
"Robbie-"
"I know what you're going to say, that I don't know you. You were kinda right before; going to school, sharing classes and sitting at lunch together every day doesn't count as truly knowing someone. But you were also weirdly wrong too. Because I do know you! I just didn't know that I knew you like you wanted me to. So if you let me, I'd like to tell you what I've discovered about you, Cat Valentine."
"And here comes the train wreck…" Jade marveled, looking genuinely excited while holding her camera in front of Cat and Robbie's faces.
"You're breathtaking and you wear cute clothing to accentuate your natural beauty. But you do this because you're terrified that if people don't like how you look on the outside, they won't like who you are on the inside."
"Hey…I do that too!" Tori declared with sudden realization in reference to her clothing.
"No one cares about your stupid epiphanies, Vega!" Jade barked.
"You get lost in your own imagination and people think you're weird for it. But you like telling yourself stories because they comfort you in a world made up of cynical people who only care about having money and being popular. The stories you tell yourself aren't about superficial things. They're about love and happiness and expressing wonder at inexplicable, miraculous things. They're born from a mind that is not only creative, but brilliant."
Despite her misgivings at humouring Robbie in any sense, Cat couldn't help blushing at the compliments he'd just given her.
When he wasn't being desperate and creepy (especially with making life-size cardboard cutouts of her), he was actually really sweet.
"You love with your whole heart and you forgive people even when they show you their darkest sides. You understand that life isn't always about rainbows at the end of a bad storm. That's why you're the rainbow in the lives of the people you love, when they can't summon any happiness on their own. You're there to show them that all they need is a little love, imagination and acceptance to be happy."
"Dang, that's deep. I wonder if I can write a song about that…?" Andre mumbled pensively to himself.
Then Robbie went for broke and tipped Cat's chin upwards so that they were now eyeball to eyeball in the bustling hallway.
"At the end of the day, you're just…your sweet and unique self, quirks and all. And I love you for it, Cat Valentine. Even if you never feel the same way as I do, there's nothing I would change about you in reality or in a dream."
Cat emitted a quivering breath at all the wonderful things that Robbie had just said to her. Her hands suddenly felt too big and sweaty for her petite body as she thought about all the things she wanted to say and do in the moment.
At the end of it, there was only sentence that seemed to encompass everything she was feeling.
"Robbie, I was wrong…you do know me."
Cat stood on her tiptoes, placed her hands on Robbie's cheeks and then kissed him hard.
"What in the name of gravy?!" Andre hollered when Robbie planted his hands firmly on her hips and kissed her back with just as much fervour.
If he'd thought that kissing Cat multiple times in his dream last night was great, then this moment in his usually bleak reality was beyond incredible. Her lips were every bit as soft as he imagined they would be; they tasted sweet like the red licorice she liked hiding in her bra to snack on at school.
This kiss was everything to him and more.
And most importantly, it was real.
Cat pulled away briefly to catch her breath. Somehow, her arms had wound themselves around Robbie's lanky neck while kissing him. He was still stooping over her, his breath coming out in ragged pants, his long curly hair falling over his eyes in a brooding, sensual curtain.
His cheeks were so red from her kisses. That shade of red reminded Cat of her own hair and red velvet cupcakes.
Robbie's words and lips were sweet like red velvet cupcakes too.
She giggled nervously when Robbie's dark brown eyes melded with her own soft, brown eyes yet again till she was robbed of speech and breath. And then she closed her eyes and pressed their lips together once more.
"Is this really happening?" Beck asked of the hallway at large when Robbie lifted Cat off her feet ever so slightly to hold her more tightly while they kissed passionately.
"Five bucks says that these are actually Robbie and Cat's doppelgangers kissing right now…" Sinjin piped up unexpectedly from behind the group as Cat's dainty hands tangled themselves in Robbie's hair as she kissed him on repeat.
"Normally, your jank stories are weirder than my grandma's crazy brain, Sinjin. But this time around, you might actually be onto something…" Andre concurred, grimacing in bewilderment at the scene in front of him.
"This is so much weirder than that time Trina made me shave her in the car…" Tori trailed off in awe, her eyes glued to the scene in front of her like it was a major car accident.
"I'm already bored, let's bail," Jade mumbled, looking genuinely miffed by the outcome of the morning.
Finally, Robbie put Cat back on her feet and they disentangled themselves reluctantly from each other. They both felt a little awkward and self-conscious now that they weren't kissing and Robbie wasn't declaring his love for Cat.
So Robbie took to holding Cat's hand lightly in his while gazing deep into her eyes.
Cat had kissed a lot of boys before this. But she had never enjoyed kissing a boy as much as she'd done with Robbie just now.
And no other boy before him had been so incredibly cute and sweet with making big rainbow-coloured butterflies skip and tap-dance in her stomach.
And that gave Cat an idea…
"Wanna skip first period class and go catch some butterflies?" Cat asked, shooting Robbie a bright smile.
"Actually…it's a really nice day out. Do you wanna maybe find a warm spot in the sun and make weird shapes out of clouds?" Robbie suggested.
"Oh, yay! That sounds way better than catching butterflies that look like the inside of my stomach!" Cat agreed readily.
"Tori, can you watch Rex for me - thanks!" Robbie called out, handing the puppet over to a stunned Tori.
Then he laughed happily as Cat giggled and grabbed his arm and dragged him outside while Tori and the rest of their friends watched in a mesh of amusement and undeniable shock.
"Was all of that just some trippy dream after a Northridge Prom?" Rex asked.
He still couldn't believe that Robbie had forgotten all about him.
Still, Tori's chest made for a nice, sexy pillow…
"Nope, that really happened. And it's going straight on The Slap…once I call my service provider and recharge my data." Jade answered, scurrying off to make a phone call.
Beck shook his head and smiled as he followed his girlfriend. "I guess it was finally a day for a sad kid to get his wings and fly…" he murmured to himself.
"Yes, but when will it finally be my turn?" Sinjin asked Beck, his eyes lingering with longing on Tori, who was scowling and swatting Rex's wandering hand away from her butt.
"Come on, guys. You can help me brainstorm song lyrics for Cat and Robbie's eternal love," Andre said to Tori and Rex as they walked together to Sikowitz's class.
"Can it have 'Tori is still super confused by what went down this morning' in it?"
"Can it have 'Rex definitely knows how to please a girl in the bedroom' in it?"
"Absolutely, Tor, and stop talking crazy, puppet!"
"That chizz is offensive!"
Author's Note: As Notorious B.I.G would say - "It was aaaaaaallllllll a dreeeeeeaaaaammm!"
Yes, Robbie was dreaming the entire time. Props to the reviewers who guessed right from the start. You've earned yourself a coupon for 'all you can eat wings' from BF Wangs ;-D
I really enjoyed doing the dialogue and jokes for the Victorious characters in this chapter - did I nail it?
And there was another Cat and Robbie kiss, but for realsies this time :-DDD
Life is good when you're Jewish, tres awkward and have a rude puppet for an alter ego.
Still three more chapters left to wrap everything up.
Leave me reviews - they're the only love I have left in my heart ever since Ariana Grande sent me that restraining order in the mail. Something about 'no more dancing in front of my home wearing a cut out of my face over your face to protect yourself from illness'...
Tootles!