A/N: Like most people right now, I'm under stay-at-home orders so...enjoy this impromptu quarantine AU! I hope it manages to bring some joy into your life during this incredibly stressful and uncertain time.
Stay safe, y'all! And come talk to me on Tumblr darthbelle!
Day 14
When the governor ordered everyone in the state to follow stay-at-home guidelines for the next month, Jade West truly didn't care.
Why should she? It wasn't like she had to go into work every day; she had converted the spare bedroom in her apartment into a home office the week after she moved in. Food wasn't an issue either, since restaurants were still able to send delivery (it wasn't like she really cooked much anyway). And she didn't even have to worry about maintaining any relationships because Beck had broken up with her last month and it wasn't like she really had any friends to worry about.
If anyone asked, she would say that she was looking forward to not having to be around other people for the foreseeable future. Being alone was her dream.
By the second week of being under quarantine, though, she was beginning to discover that, perhaps, she was wrong about the whole "not needing other people" thing. Not that she'd ever admit it, of course. And she had a done a good job of hiding it from herself, even; or, at least, she had until she started talking to the succulent on her windowsill.
And so that's why she found herself opening the door to her apartment with her laundry basket held against her hip and a secret wish that she would at least see someone else.
What she certainly did not want, though, was to round the corner and run smack dab into a total stranger. The collision sent both her and her laundry basket to the ground, knocking the wind out of her and scattering her clothes onto the floor.
"Shit, I'm so sorry! I didn't see you!" A slender hand reached out towards her, but Jade slapped it away.
"Don't touch me!" she snapped, and the hand quickly withdrew. She glared up at the hand's owner, a woman with chestnut-colored hair and tanned skin that Jade was fairly certain she had never seen before. "Jesus Christ, haven't you ever heard of social distancing? Six feet, woman, come on!"
The woman scrambled backwards, a perplexed expression on her face. "Sorry, I..."
Jade shook her head and pushed herself to her feet. "Just forget about it, and get out of here so I can pick up my laundry without having to hear you stammer out meaningless apologies."
"Oh, uh...okay?" The woman stepped around Jade's laundry basket, glancing down at the discarded clothing. "Are you sure I can't help you..."
Jade sighed heavily and pointed in the direction that the woman had been heading. "Go!"
She was pretty sure she heard the woman yelp, but she ignored it and instead began to pick up her laundry.
When she turned around again, the woman was walking into an apartment a few doors down and Jade was cursing herself out for ever wishing to see another person.
She wouldn't make that mistake again. No way.
Day 19
It had been a relatively quiet day when the news broke that the governor had ordered all restaurants to shut down. No delivery, no take-out, no anything. And the grocery stores were supposed to follow suit, with only a few remaining open for emergencies only.
What constituted an emergency was not really made clear. Not that it mattered, anyway, since the nearest open store was several miles away and she didn't have a car. And the mayor had suspended public transit weeks ago.
It would be fine, she told herself. It wasn't like she didn't have anything in her kitchen. She had ramen, and coffee, and she was pretty sure there was a loaf of bread somewhere in there...
Wait, no, just more ramen.
"Well, that might be a problem," she told the succulent. The succulent didn't seem to care.
Day 26
She stared down into her bowl, using her spoon to poke at a tiny shrimp that had risen to the surface of the broth.
"I'm going to die," she muttered. "I'm going to die, and it's going to be my fault because I didn't have the fucking foresight to buy anything other than fucking RAMEN!"
She didn't even realize that she had picked up the bowl and thrown it until it shattered against the wall across from the table. Ceramic shards went flying in every direction, accompanied by splatters of greasy broth, while the noodles stuck to the plaster. Jade stared at the mess for a long moment, blinking slowly as the noodles began to slide down the wall, hitting the floor with an unpleasant splat.
"Well, shit," she said before beginning to laugh. Her laugh quickly turned into hysterical giggles that had her doubled-over in her seat, tears springing up in her eyes. "Jesus Christ!"
She wasn't sure how long she spent in that position, but by the time she could stop laughing, her stomach ached more than it already had and her eyes burned and nothing was really that funny anymore.
Day 29
She didn't really know what she was doing when she forced herself out of her apartment. She knew where she was going, and she had some idea of why she was going there, but when she found herself standing in front of the door, she didn't really know what she was doing there.
But she started knocking anyway, softly at first but quickly increasing intensity until the door was practically shaking beneath her fist.
"I'm coming!" she heard the voice inside say, but she added another knock just for good measure.
The door flew open, and Jade found herself face-to-face with the woman that had ruined her laundry day several weeks ago.
"Uh...hello?" the woman said, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Can I help you?"
"Do you have any food?" Jade said, unable to keep the words from pouring out of her mouth. She winced, hating how pathetic she sounded. "Actually, never mind, I was never here, I..."
She began to turn away, but was stopped by a hand that was suddenly wrapped around her wrist. She turned her head to find a pair of dark brown eyes staring into her own, the concern shining in them also written across the stranger's face.
"Are you okay?"
Jade stared at her for a moment, then glanced down at the hand still clasped around her wrist. "Guessing social distancing means very little to you, huh?"
The hand left her wrist, but the concern didn't leave the woman's eyes. "Seriously, what's going on?"
Jade pursed her lips for a moment, fully ready to turn around and head back to her apartment, when her stomach growled. Not a small growl, one that she could have played off with a laugh, but a growl that betrayed just how hungry she had to be to the petite woman whose eyebrows practically arched off of her face at the noise.
"Have you eaten anything lately?" she asked, and Jade shrugged.
"Ramen?" she said, and then the hand was around her wrist again and tugging her into the apartment. "Woah, hey, what..."
"Sit." The woman pointed at the couch in front of them. "When was the last time you actually had any ramen? Because you look like you haven't eaten in days."
Jade didn't respond right away, and the woman's face went pale. "Please tell me you're joking."
"I mean, two days isn't that long," Jade replied, before finding herself being pushed down onto the couch. "Hey!"
"I'm almost finished making dinner, and I have enough for two portions. Do you have any dietary restrictions?"
Jade shook her head. "Uh, no, but are you sure..."
"You might have been a rude ass to me the other week, but I'm not about to let you starve," she said, and Jade felt an unfamiliar heat spread across her cheeks.
"Yeah, about that..." Jade started, but the woman shook her head.
"We can talk after I pull dinner out of the oven, okay?" She ducked into what Jade could only assume was the kitchen. A timer beeped a few moments later, and she could hear the clattering of pans and dishes. It only took a few more minutes for the woman to re-emerge, carefully balancing two plates in her hands.
Jade began to stand up, ready to take the plates from her, but she was shooed back down onto the couch.
"I hope you don't mind chicken," the woman said as she placed the plates down onto the coffee table that sat in front of the couch. "Because that's what I made, and I wasn't exactly expecting visitors." She turned her head and caught the guilty expression on Jade's face. "Oh no, that's not what I meant! I just...ugh, I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry, I just kinda barged in here and it wasn't cool of me, and I can just..." Jade started to stand up again, only to be met with a sharp glare.
"If you even try to leave right now I will tackle you," the woman said, and from the look in her eyes, Jade didn't doubt her words at all. So she sat back down, and tried to look like she hadn't just been reprimanded by someone she didn't even know.
"Do you drink?"
Jade looked up, surprised. "Pardon?"
"Do you drink? Because I was going to open a bottle of wine, but I also have coffee, or tea, if you'd prefer."
"Wine is fine."
"Cool." She disappeared back into the kitchen, coming back a few moments later with a bottle and two wine glasses. "All I have is Riesling, so I hope that's okay."
Jade laughed, just once, and leaned back so her shoulders pressed against the cushion. "Why are you being so nice to me?"
"Hmm?" The woman set the bottle down, pulling a corkscrew out of her pocket. "Why shouldn't I be?"
"Because, as you said, I was a rude ass towards you, so you have literally no reason to be even remotely pleasant towards me!"
The woman's eyebrow's arched, but she went on trying to get the bottle of wine open. "We're in the middle of a literal global pandemic, and I don't feel like adding even more negativity to the world." She twisted the corkscrew, but it wouldn't budge. "Oh, come on!"
"Let me try?" Jade reached out for the bottle and corkscrew, and the woman let her take them from her hands. "I guess I just don't get why you bothered opening the door. Like, you could have ignored me- you should have ignored me. We're not supposed to be around other people, and-"
"I mean, we already literally ran into each other a few weeks ago, so I figured I'd take my chances." She watched as Jade managed to yank the cork out, then reached out to grab the bottle when it was offered to her. "You're not sick, are you?"
Jade shook her head. "Don't think so. Are you?"
"Not that I'm aware of." She poured wine into both glasses, holding one out for Jade to take before sitting down next to her on the couch, ignoring how Jade shifted away from her. "Shall we make a toast?"
Jade had already started taking a sip of her wine, but she pulled the glass away from her lips as quickly as possible. "Uh...sure?"
The woman clinked her glass against the one in Jade's hand. "To us, then. And our continued health."
Jade lifted her glass a few inches before bringing it back to her lips. She took a sip, then set the glass down. "Thanks..." she paused, searching for a name and finding none. "I guess I don't actually know your name, do I?"
The woman had already set down her glass and had picked up her plate. "Huh. Guess not." She set the plate back down, and stuck out a hand in Jade's direction. "I'm Tori. Tori Vega."
Jade shook her hand for the briefest of moments, trying not to focus on how soft Tori's hand was in hers'. "Jade West."
Tori sat back, and looked at Jade with a dumbfounded expression. "Wait, like the Jade West?"
Jade cocked an eyebrow. "Uh...maybe?"
"You wrote Fire Escape, right? And Violet?"
It was Jade's turn to look dumbfounded. "Wait, you've seen my movies?"
"Of course!" Tori's face lit up with pure excitement. "Fire Escape is literally one of my favorites!"
"Shit, I didn't think anyone saw that one," Jade remarked, reaching out for her wine again.
Tori shot her an incredulous look. "It made a couple million at the box office, didn't it?"
"Yeah, but like...shut up," Jade said, feeling a blush spread across her cheeks. "It's not like a directed it or anything, I just wrote the damn thing. No one pays attention to the writer." She took a sip of wine, trying to ignore the look Tori was giving her, but failing miserably. She was about to say something, anything, when her stomach growled, causing her face to burn even hotter.
"Shit, right, you're literally starving!" Tori picked up Jade's plate and shoved it into her hands. "Eat!"
"Has anyone told you that you're really bossy?" Jade said, making sure her tone showed that she was joking. Well, mostly.
"Has anyone told you that you're..." Tori paused, trying to think of a response. "Uh..."
"Witty? Charming? Beautiful?" Jade grinned, using her fork to pierce a piece of broccoli. "Take your pick, Vega."
"Abrasive," Tori finally said, and Jade laughed.
"Yeah, I've heard that one a time or two." She gestured towards Tori with her fork. "Now, can I eat this or are you going to keep yammering?"
Tori rolled her eyes, but picked up her fork. She continued to glare at Jade as she stabbed at her food. "You know, it's almost like I didn't slave over a hot stove to make a meal for a complete stranger."
"You didn't," Jade deadpanned, popping the broccoli into her mouth and chewing before swallowing and looking up at Tori. "You were already making yourself dinner, and I just happened to grace you with my presence. Good cooking, by the way. Compliments to the chef."
"You really are a bit of an ass, you know that?"
Jade just grinned and took another bite.
Day 30
And so began the start of Jade's new routine.
She still didn't need anyone else, and she sure as hell wasn't seeking out any form of companionship, but-
Tori had food. And Jade didn't.
So she found herself back in the other woman's apartment the following day, enjoying another dinner that Tori had made (fajitas, this time). But unlike the previous night, Jade didn't leave right away. Instead, she lingered. Tori didn't question it, and she was glad because really didn't want to have to tell her neighbor that the reason that she hadn't left yet was because she really didn't want to have to make conversation with her cactus again.
(She was afraid it might start talking back to her)
"So why do you have so much food, anyway?"
Tori looked up to find Jade kneeling next to one of the many boxes of supplies that currently occupied her living room. "Because they told us on the news to stock up?"
"Yeah, I get that, but you have enough here to feed a small army."
"I like to be prepared," Tori replied. "And aren't you glad that I was, because otherwise you'd still be eating ramen."
Jade stood up and meandered over to the loveseat, lounging across it like it was her own. "I wouldn't, actually. I ran out a few days ago."
"You what?"
She looked up to find Tori staring at her, mouth agape. "I mean, yeah, why'd you think I showed up outside your door?"
"I just thought that you wanted something other than ramen and had like, I don't know, refused to eat any more of it for a few days! I didn't realize that you had actually run out!"
Jade's eyebrow quirked up. "Well...oops."
Tori shook her head in a mixture of disgust and awe. "You're so lucky that I answered the door last night."
Jade shrugged. "I would have figured out something else if you hadn't."
Tori shot her an incredulous look. "Oh yeah?"
"There are still grocery stores open, Vega."
"Yeah, all the way over in Burbank! Do you even have a car?"
Jade's lack of response was answer enough, and Tori sighed heavily as she covered her face with her hands. "Planning isn't your strong suit, is it?"
Jade shrugged again, her lips twitching upwards in the smirk that Tori was quickly learning was her default facial expression. "I try to devote my time to more important things. You know, like writing those movies that you apparently love."
"And no one will ever see those movies if you starve to death before you can finish writing them!"
Jade tilted her head to the side, propping it up with elbow on the armrest. "Vega, I'm not sure anyone will ever see them, period. If you haven't noticed, the world is basically on fire right now."
"Yeah, but it'll have to end sometime, right?" Tori waited for Jade to answer in the affirmative, and when she didn't, she glanced over to find that the smirk had been wiped away from the other woman's face. "Right?"
Jade's teeth worried her bottom lip, and she averted her gaze. "Right. Yeah."
It wasn't a good lie, but Tori appreciated it all the same.
Day 33
"Vega, what do you do for a living?"
Tori, who had been peering into the window of the oven, straightened up and looked over at Jade with a bemused expression. "You know, it's taken you like, four days to ask me that?"
Jade blushed and looked away, reaching up to scratch the back of her head idly. "Yeah, well...it slipped my mind, I guess."
"Uh huh." Tori turned back towards the oven, reaching out for the pair of oven mitts resting on the counter next to it. "Well, I guess I don't really do anything for a living right now, considering the whole world is basically unemployed, but I was a singer and a song-writer before all of this started."
"Oh?" Jade watched as Tori opened the door to the oven and leaned in to pull out the lasagna. "Sing anything that I would know?"
Tori set the lasagna down on top of the stove and shut the oven door before slipping the oven mitts back off. "Probably not. I've mostly just sang back-up on some of Ginger Fox's records. I was supposed to have my own EP coming out soon, but...well, obviously that hasn't happened."
"Did you already record it?" Jade asked as she walked over to the cabinets that she knew held Tori's plates. She pulled out two and set them on the counter before beginning to search for utensils.
"Forks are in the drawer next to the sink. And yeah, we recorded it about a month before shit hit the fan."
Jade moved over to the drawer that Tori had pointed out, and rummaged through it for two forks. "Maybe you could play it for me sometime."
Tori didn't respond right away, and so Jade glanced up at her, forks in hand. She was met with an expression that she couldn't quite read. "What?"
"You would actually want to hear my music?" Tori asked, the words careful and soft as they left her mouth.
"If you'd want to play it for me, yeah?" Jade shut the drawer and set the forks down next to the plates. "I mean, you don't have to or anything, I just thought...well, you've obviously seen some of my work, so fair is fair, you know? But if you don't want..."
"No, I'd love to!" Tori said quickly, then winced. "Wow, that sounded way too eager, didn't it?"
Jade laughed and shook her head. "I wouldn't expect anything less from you, Vega."
Tori rolled her eyes, but smiled. "Shut up, West."
(They listened to a few of her tracks later that night, and Jade was forced to admit that Tori was, in fact, very talented. Far too talented to have been relegated to singing back-up for Ginger Freaking Fox.)
Day 41
Dinner that night was stir fry, heavy on the rice.
("I just have a lot of rice" Tori had told her, and Jade chose not to bring up the fact that she knew that they were almost out of frozen vegetables)
Like almost every night during the week before, they chose to watch a movie after dinner. It had been Tori's pick that night, much to Jade's chagrin.
("The Proposal?" she had whined, and Tori just rolled her eyes before shoving the DVD into the player)
Unlike every other night before this one, though, Jade fell asleep before the movie was over. She hadn't meant to, of course. It was just that she had spent most of her day holed up in her office, trying to make the story in her head translate into words that she could type out and had ended up failing miserably. And she hadn't really slept much the night before (or the night before that one, either), so she supposed it wasn't that odd that she had dozed off.
The odd part was that when she woke up it was 3:44 a.m. and she was still on Tori's couch, now covered with a blanket that hadn't been lying across her when she was watching the movie.
No, she mused. That wasn't the odd part.
The odd part was that she didn't get up and go back to her apartment when she woke up. She thought about it, of course. It wasn't like she didn't just live down the hall.
But, instead, she just found herself pulling the blanket tighter over her shoulders and letting herself fall back to sleep.
Tori was surprised to find her in the same position when she walked out the next morning, but she didn't bother waking her up. Instead, she began making breakfast and let the wafting smell of freshly-brewed coffee do the work of rousing the scriptwriter from her slumber.
(She didn't comment on how cute Jade's bed-head made her look when she came meandering into the kitchen. And she definitely didn't comment on how Jade's sleepy smile and murmured "thanks" when she handed her a mug of coffee made the butterflies in her stomach start to flutter.)
Day 47
"Is your apartment bigger than mine?"
Jade looked up at Tori over the rim of the mug she had just brought to her lips. She arched an eyebrow, but took a sip of her coffee before answering. "I think it's basically the same size, why?"
Tori shrugged, holding her mug close to her face but not taking a sip. "I just haven't seen it, so I'm trying to picture it. Plus I figured that a hot-shot Hollywood script writer would have a nicer apartment than mine." She glanced around her living room and frowned. "I mean, I would hope that you would, at least."
Jade laughed, shaking her head softly. "I seriously don't make that much money, Vega. I sold my first two scripts when I was fresh out of college, and most of the money went towards paying off my student loans. And I haven't had that much success since, so..." She shrugged. "You're welcome to come over, though, if you want proof of my modest existence."
Tori brought her mug up to her lips, hiding her smile behind it as she took a small sip of her coffee. "I'd love to see your place, Jade."
And that's how Jade found herself standing in her office while Tori slowly turned in a circle, taking in the framed movie posters that decorated the walls.
"You wrote all of these?" she asked, pausing to look closer at the poster for Fire Escape that hung next to Jade's desk.
"Most of them. Some I co-wrote with my ex-boyfriend. And I definitely didn't write The Scissoring," she gestured towards its poster, which hung prominently above the desk. "But I sure wish that I had, because it's the best movie ever made."
Tori shuddered. "We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. Also, ex-boyfriend?"
Jade nodded, choosing to continue to look at the poster instead of towards Tori, who she knew was looking towards her. "Yeah. Beck Oliver. We went to school together, and co-wrote a few scripts together, too."
"You haven't mentioned him before," Tori remarked. Jade shrugged.
"Yeah, well, that's probably because he's my ex-boyfriend. I don't like living in the past, so why bother bringing him up?" She turned, finally looking towards Tori. She was surprised to be met with a frown. "Is something wrong?"
Tori quickly smiled, but it was obvious that it was forced. "No, of course not! Why would anything be wrong? I was just...you know, thinking about how cool it is that you and him got to be so successful together."
Jade's eyebrows rose, and she leaned back against her desk with her arms crossed and a playful smile tugging at her lips. "Jealous, Vega?"
Tori's face burned red. "What? Of course not!"
Jade's smile turned into a smirk. "It's okay, Vega. I get it."
"You...you do?" Tori blinked before narrowing her eyes at Jade in distrust. "Wait, what do you get?"
Jade shook her head, stepping away from her desk. "Oh, nothing." She began to head for the doorway but paused in front of where Tori stood. She cast a sly glance down the length of her body, taking her sweet time before bringing her eyes back up to meet Tori's. "You don't have anything to be jealous about, Vega. You're much cuter than he ever was."
With that, she kept walking, leaving a perplexed and dumbfounded Tori in her wake.
("Vega, I thought you wanted to see the rest of my apartment!" she would yell a minute later, and Tori had to blink hard a few times before she could find the will to make her feet move)
Day 55
"So...how much longer do you think we have until the food runs out?" Jade asked, carrying a sack of rice into the kitchen. She set it down on the counter, only to be shooed away by a spatula-wielding Tori who had, until that moment, been singing along to the music coming from her phone speaker. It hadn't been a song that Jade normally liked, but that didn't matter because she had discovered that Tori's singing could make her like pretty much any song, regardless of her previous preference.
"Move that down a few feet, would you? This is the meat-prepping area, not the grain-prepping area!" She waited until Jade complied before answering her actual question. "And I'm not sure. When I went and bought it all, I had gotten enough stuff to last me at least four months. But I had factored on only one person eating it, so..."
"So less than that, probably," Jade finished. "Okay, cool. Well, next round is on me, and it'll be a double. Sound fair?"
"Mhm," Tori hummed in reply. She plucked a knife out of the knife block and started slicing a chicken breast into smaller strips.
Jade looked at her for a moment before she turned away and leaned down to pull a pot out from the cabinet underneath the utensil drawer. She filled it with water and set it on the stove, twisting the gas on. "Have you heard from your parents lately?"
Tori nodded. "Yeah, Dad texted earlier to say that they were both doing fine."
"And Trina?"
"I believe his words were "Trina is also alive but won't be for much longer if she keeps waking us up every morning with her screeching.""
"She sounds like an adventure," Jade remarked, moving back to the sack of rice. "Where are your measuring cups?"
"Next to the utensils. And yeah, she's...definitely something." Tori paused for a moment, long enough for Jade to look at her with hesitant concern. "When we were young...I was probably like, seven, so she would have been around nine, I guess...we stayed up late one night without our parents knowing. It was the night of a meteor shower, you see, and Mom and Dad told us we were too young to stay up and watch it because it was a school night, but I wanted to see it so badly. And so, after they went to bed, Trina came and got me and snuck us out onto the back patio, and we stayed up all night, staring up at the sky and making wishes on every shooting star we could see, which wasn't many considering all the light pollution, but there were still a few." She set the knife down and as Jade watched, a small smile appeared on her lips. "We eventually fell asleep, and Mom and Dad found us out there the next morning after searching for us for what was apparently a very long time, and we both got grounded for like, a month, but it was so worth it."
"You miss her," Jade said, and Tori nodded.
"Of course I do." Tori turned away, picking her knife back up. "Don't you miss your family?"
Jade pulled a measuring cup out of the drawer. "Not really." She set the measuring cup down and pulled a pair of scissors out of the waistband of her jeans, using it to cut open the top of the sack of rice. She could feel Tori's eyes on her, so she turned to look at her. "What?"
"You seriously don't miss them at all?"
Jade shrugged and tucked the scissors back into her waistband. Tori's eyes followed her movement, and Jade had to keep herself from smirking at the slight concern in her eyes. But then those eyes met hers' again, and she realized the concern in them might not have just been a result of the scissors. "Why should I? We've never been close."
Tori watched as she turned away and reached for the measuring cup. Jade shoved the cup in the sack, filling it with rice as she ignored the eyes that were still trained on her.
"Have you texted them at all?"
Jade side-stepped around her and moved to the stove, where she dumped the rice into the pot of now-boiling water. "Yeah. They're fine."
"Just fine?"
A heavy sigh. "Vega, they're fine. They're alive, which is more than I can say for a lot of people right now. Now, can we please talk about something other than my family, because quite frankly, it's not a topic I enjoy."
"Sorry," Tori murmured, finally turning back to the cutting board. "I didn't mean to pry."
"It's fine. Don't worry about it."
But Tori did worry about it. She worried about it when Jade started replying in only short sentences. She worried about it when they sat on the couch, eating their dinner (sesame chicken and rice, a new favorite) in relative silence. And she worried about it when Jade stood up after they had finished and said that she was going to turn in for the night.
"Wait!" Tori said, finally finding her voice after a moment of stunned silence. Jade paused, her hand already on the doorknob. "Jade, please don't go. Not yet."
"Vega, I'm tired, and I really need to get some sleep if I hope to get anything written tomorrow-"
"I'm sorry, okay?" Tori interrupted. She walked towards the door, being careful to leave a few feet between her and Jade. "I didn't mean to upset you, and don't say that I didn't because I know I did, it's pretty obvious, and I'm really sorry. I won't ever ask about your family again, okay? Just please don't leave and be angry with me."
Jade's fingers loosened a little, their grip barely secure around the doorknob. There was an expression on Tori's face that was beginning to worry her, an almost desperate look that Jade hadn't ever seen her make before. "Vega, I..."
"And let's be real, you don't need to write anything tomorrow because you've spent the last two months writing non-stop, and for what? The world is literally on fire and people are dead and we could get sick at any moment and I'm tired of pretending like everything is going to be okay because it's NOT."
Jade didn't even realize that she had let go of the knob until she found herself wrapping her arms around Tori's shoulders. She pulled the shorter woman close to her and held her. Just held her. And when Tori's shoulders began to shake with the force of the sobs that wracked her body, Jade rubbed gentle circles into her back while she hummed softly next to her ear and ignored how the front of her shirt became damp with tears.
It took a while for the shaking to subside and for the tears to slow, but eventually Jade felt a pair of slim arms slip underneath hers' and clasp loosely around her back. It took another few minutes before she felt Tori's head turn so that her cheek was pressed against Jade's chest, the heat of her skin burning through her shirt.
"Are you humming one of my songs?" Tori whispered, her voice raw and raspy.
"Maybe," Jade replied. "I would have sang it instead, but I don't remember all of the words."
"Oh."
Jade felt Tori's grip grow tighter around her ribs, almost painfully tight, but she didn't loosen her own embrace. Instead, she began to let her fingers stroke the nape of Tori's neck softly, feeling the shorter woman shiver against her.
It was silent for a minute before Tori spoke again, her voice slightly less hoarse than before. "I just didn't want you to leave."
"I sort of gathered that, Vega," Jade murmured, her breath tickling Tori's ear. "But, you do remember that I literally live down the hall? It's not like I was going very far."
"But you could," Tori said. "You could just leave and not come back and then I'd be alone." Her voice cracked, and she swallowed past the lump in her throat before whispering: "I'm so scared of being alone."
The crack in Tori's voice caused a knot to form in Jade's stomach but she tried to ignore it as she loosened her embrace and brought her hands to Tori's shoulders. She shifted so she could look at Tori straight-on without jostling the other woman enough to cause her to let go. "Tori, look at me."
Tori hesitated at first, but Jade curled a finger underneath her chin and gently tilted her head up so that her eyes were looking straight into Jade's own. Tori tried to blink away the tears that still-threatened to fall as Jade let her hand fall back down onto her shoulder, and she found herself wondering if Jade's eyes had always been the color of the sea.
(She called me Tori)
"I'm not going anywhere, okay?" Jade said, squeezing Tori's shoulders gently. "I didn't mean to upset you, I just..." she shrugged and glanced down quickly, biting her lip. "Running away from the things that make me uncomfortable is sort of my defense mechanism. It's shitty, I know, but I didn't realize it was going to set you off or anything."
"To be fair, I didn't realize I was going to have a mental breakdown either," Tori joked, feeling relieved when Jade's eye roll was accompanied by a slight upturning of her lips that didn't quite form a smile but certainly didn't form a frown.
"Yeah, that was...kinda unexpected, if I'm being honest," Jade said, and Tori found herself chuckling.
"Yeah, well, I'm just full of surprises sometimes."
Jade hummed in agreement, moving her hands so that they clasped at the top of Tori's spine. "We're going to be fine, you know that, right?"
"What do you mean?" Tori asked, ignoring how her heart seemed to skip a beat at Jade's words.
"It's been like, what, two months since all of this started?" She waited for Tori to nod before continuing. "And yeah, things outside are really shit. People are dead. A lot of people, in fact. Honestly, I think our landlord might be one of them, because I don't know about you but I haven't paid my rent since February and he hasn't stapled an eviction notice to my door, and he isn't exactly one to fuck around with waiting to screw people over, even in a crisis."
Tori saw the smirk on Jade's face, and she reached up and smacked her on the shoulderblade.
"Hey! What was that for?"
"A man might be dead, that isn't something to be happy about!"
Jade rolled her eyes again. "He's more of a leech than a man, but whatever. The point is that we can't control what's going on out there. But we're both still healthy, and our families are healthy, and we're not in immediate danger of starving to death. So we're going to be fine, okay?"
Tori's lips pursed together in a thin line, the skin turning almost-white. "Have you noticed that we've seen no one else from our building?"
"Uh..."
"Jade, they could all be dead. Or sick."
"Or...they could be doing what they were told to do and quarantining themselves, just like we are."
Tori shrugged and looked down towards the floor. "I guess. Just seems weird, that's all."
"We could always go door-to-door and check, if you wanted to," Jade said, regretting the words the moment she said them. But then Tori looked back up at her and she could see the light in her eyes and she knew that she would agree to anything that she asked of her if it made her smile.
(Fuck)
"Yeah?" Tori asked, and Jade found herself nodding despite the voice in her head screaming "no."
"If that's what you want, then sure." She paused, thinking. "But we definitely have to actually follow the whole "social distancing" thing because I am not getting sick because of you and your need to be a good person, Vega."
Tori grinned, and pulled Jade closer to her. "You're such a gank, Jade West."
"Yeah, whatever," Jade huffed.
(She was so fucked)
Day 56
They knocked on every door in the building. Most didn't answer, but some did. One memorable encounter involved a kindly gentleman named Herb who refused to actually open his door, but he shouted his life story through the wood with an enthusiasm that Jade normally would have found sickening. But Tori adored him, and so she tried not to roll her eyes too much when he started to tell them about his gout.
Eventually, they managed to move on to the next door (only after Tori made sure that Herb had enough to eat, of course). And then the next door, and the next.
In all, they discovered that there were at least fifteen other people in the building who were also waiting out the storm in varying degrees of preparedness that ranged from "I've still got a few more boxes of mac and cheese" to "I have enough toilet paper to papier-mâché the Taj Mahal." Fifteen living, breathing people.
They really weren't alone after all. And that knowledge was enough to make them both breathe a little easier.
Day 59
They were just finishing up dinner (spaghetti, this time) when the breaking news bulletin interrupted the Friendsre-run that they had put on.
American cases exceed 2 million, the chyron on the bottom of the screen read. Global death toll passes 400,000. Governor extends stay-at-home order for an additional 30 days.
"Another month?" Jade whispered, her fork held loosely in her hand. Next to her, Tori nodded in stunned silence.
The chyron disappeared after another minute and the sudden re-appearance of the sitcom's laugh track caused both women to jump.
"Well, shit," Jade said, and Tori found that she couldn't help but laugh; though whether she was laughing at what Jade said or just the absolute absurdity of their current situation, she couldn't say. The laughter proved to be contagious though, and they both found themselves doubled over and giggling like madwomen.
"Fuck!" Tori exclaimed, holding her stomach and drawing her legs underneath her. Her profanity caused Jade to laugh even harder.
"We... are so...fucked!" Jade said, the words peppered breathlessly between peals of laughter. She leaned against the arm of the couch, trying to catch her breath while wiping away the tears that had sprung up in her eyes from the force of her laughing. "Like, did you see those numbers? How the fuck are we supposed to come back from that, Vega?"
Tori shook her head, still shaking with errant giggles. "How the fuck should I know?"
"Oh my God," Jade gasped, letting the last remnants of laughter fade away. Then, a whisper: "Oh my God."
They sat there quietly for a moment, staring at nothing and letting the dialogue of the tv show fill the emptiness.
"I think I should call my parents," Tori said once the show switched to its commercial break. Jade nodded.
"Yeah. Uh...I think I'm going to run back to my apartment for something quick." She stood, feeling the muscles of her stomach ache from laughing so hard. In the corner of her eye she saw the worried look on Tori's face, so she tilted her head and flashed a rare smile in her direction. "Go ahead and call your parents. I'll be back when you're done."
Tori smiled back at her, a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Okay. It'll be just a minute."
"Take as much time as you need," Jade said, before making her exit.
Her apartment was dark when she stepped inside. She wasn't sure why that surprised her so much, considering the sun had set over an hour before and she wasn't in the habit of leaving a light on for herself, but as she stood in her entryway in the dark and let her eyes adjust, she found that she felt a bit like a stranger in her own home.
She reached out and fumbled for the lightswitch, blinking as the light flooded into the room.
"Honey, I'm home!" she said to no one as she made her way back the hall and into her bedroom. She pulled a pair of sweatpants out of her dresser and quickly changed into them, throwing her jeans in the general direction of her hamper. Her shirt soon joined the pile, having been replaced with an over-sized college hoodie that she had stolen from Beck at some point or another.
The kitchen was her next stop. Well, to be more accurate, the cabinet to the left of her pantry was. She pulled it open, pushing past an exceedingly stale and mostly-empty box of Honey Nut Cheerios to get to the bottle of whiskey that she had hiding behind it.
"Bingo," she said, pulling it out and setting it on the counter. "I think that's everything, then..." she trailed off, catching sight of the succulent sitting on her windowsill. "Huh."
She walked over to it, bending down so she could see it better. A tentative finger pressed into the soil, coming back completely dry. "I guess I've kinda forgotten to water you, haven't I?" She reached out for the tiny squeeze bottle sitting nearby, and gave the plant a generous misting. "Sorry about that. I guess I've been a little preoccupied. You know, world catastrophe and all."
She set the bottle back down and straightened up. "Anyway, good luck, little guy. I hope I didn't murder you with my neglect."
The succulent, as was to be expected, did not respond. And the quiet quickly became too much for her, so Jade grabbed the whiskey from the kitchen and hoped that she had given Tori enough time to talk to her family.
She could hear Tori before she even opened the door to her apartment (Tori hardly ever kept it locked anymore, and she was thankful for that).
Jade pushed through the door, and was met with a sight that confirmed her suspicions- Tori, curled up on the couch, with tears streaked down her face.
Tori heard her come in, and quickly turned away, wiping at her eyes. "Oh, hey, I was just..."
"You don't have to make excuses, Vega. It's not like I haven't seen you cry before," Jade shut the door behind her before walking over towards the couch, setting the bottle of whiskey down on the coffee table before sitting next to Tori. She held her arms open and waited for Tori to shift over so that she wrap them around her. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Tori shook her head, sniffing as she settled against Jade's chest. "It's honestly nothing. Just..." she shrugged. "I miss my family, and my friends, and the world is ending, and it's just kind of a lot, you know?"
"The world is technically not ending," Jade said, ignoring the noise of disbelief that Tori made in response. "And yeah, I know." She tucked a stray strand of hair behind Tori's ear. "I'm sorry that you're stuck in here with me instead of being with your friends and family."
"Oh, shut up," Tori said, slapping her on the leg. She didn't withdraw her hand, instead letting it rest on her knee, and Jade tried to focus on something other than the small circles that Tori began drawing on her kneecap. "You're decent enough company, so don't sell yourself short."
"I'm not sure that "decent enough company" is an actual compliment," Jade mused, and Tori rolled her eyes. "Well, it's not!"
"I compliment you enough, you lug," Tori said, before sitting up and shrugging out of Jade's arms. She wiped away the last of the errant tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes before nodding her head towards the bottle sitting on the coffee table. "Where'd you dig that up at?"
"I was saving it for a rainy day," Jade replied, crossing her arms and leaning back against the arm of the couch. "I figured today was as good of a day as any, considering it's both raining and the apocalypse is upon us, but now I'm not so sure."
Tori turned to look at her, and was met with the combination of a jutting lower lip and wide eyes that looked so out of place on Jade's face that she couldn't help but laugh. That just made the pout grow, and so she reached out and shoved her shoulder. "Quit it with the moping, West, it's not a good look on you."
Jade stuck her tongue out at her in response. It was just for a brief moment, but it was enough to make Tori roll her eyes again.
"You know that I love having you around," Tori said. "So don't act like a gank."
Jade's eyebrows quirked up in surprise, though if it was genuine or not, Tori wasn't sure. "A gank? Me? Why, I never."
"Uh huh, yep, you go ahead and tell yourself that." Tori reached out for the bottle, but Jade's hand shot out and grabbed it before Tori could wrap her own hand around it. She turned back to Jade, this time being met with the smirk that she was so used to seeing on the other woman's face.
"I don't remember saying that I was willing to share," Jade said, but her tone was light and Tori knew she was joking.
Well, mostly joking. When she tried to reach for it again, Jade held it up and out of her grasp, her smirk continuing to grow.
"Seriously?" Tori said, arching an eyebrow. "You're not going to let me have any? After I've literally kept you from starving to death for the past month?" She crossed her arms, and shot a glare in Jade's direction. "You really are a gank."
Jade twisted the top off of the bottle, taking a slow sip while maintaining eye contact with her. She swallowed with an exaggerated sigh of contentment, then, to Tori's surprise, handed the bottle to her.
"I guess you have technically kept me alive for a while, so I guess you can have some," Jade explained, dodging the throw pillow that Tori tossed at her head. "Hey!"
"Gank," Tori muttered. She took a small sip of the whiskey, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Ugh. Could use Coke."
"I mean, yeah, but when was the last time we had any sort of soda around here?"
"Well..." Tori bit the inside of her lip and blushed. "Actually." She stood up, placing the bottle back on the coffee table before walking to her bedroom. She emerged a minute later, two cans of Coke in her hand.
Jade stared at her in disbelief. "You've been holding out on me?"
"I was saving them for a rainy day?" Tori tried, but it was too late. Jade had already thrown the pillow at her, and she didn't have the reflexes necessary to dodge it before it whacked her straight in the chest. "Hey!"
"All's fair in love and war, Vega, and hoarding Coke during a pandemic is definitely an act of war," Jade said as she rose from the couch. She grabbed the bottle and began to head towards the kitchen. "Now. Are you going to stand there and stare at me, or are you going to join me in getting piss-drunk?"
"Well..."
"We're stuck inside for at least another month."
"Yeah, okay. Piss-drunk sounds good."
As it turned out, getting piss-drunk was a great decision.
At least, Jade thought it was.
Not that she was very drunk, of course. It took a lot more than a few Jack and Cokes for her to get shitfaced, and she and Tori had only killed about half of the bottle so far. But she felt drunk every time she caught Tori glancing at her when she thought she wasn't looking, and every time she smiled, and...
Well, maybe she was a little drunk.
Tori was definitely drunk, though. She could see it in the rosy flush of her cheeks, and in the way that her eyes didn't quite seem to focus on what she was looking at, and in the way that her laughter rang around the room without having any tinge of sadness hiding within it.
They had moved to the bedroom about an hour ago (Tori had wanted to lie down, and Jade couldn't find a reason to stop Tori from dragging her onto the bed with her). Tori's bed was more than big enough for them to lie comfortably on without being on top of each other, but it seemed like no one had told Tori that because she had settled right next to Jade as soon as they had laid down, their limbs brushing against each other.
And if it had been anyone else, Jade would have moved away, probably with an exaggerated grimace and complaint. But it was Tori, and so she found that she didn't really mind the way that the other woman's slender fingers kept tapping out a melody on her arm.
"I don't think I've really seen you in sweatpants before," Tori murmured.
"Probably not," Jade replied. The pattern being tapped against her skin changed, becoming slower.
"Mhm. Whose hoodie is that?"
Jade cocked an eyebrow. "Mine?"
Tori shook her head, her brow furrowed just slightly. "It's too big to be yours'. And I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't be caught dead wearing anything from your University...school spirit doesn't really seem to be your jam."
"How astute," Jade said dryly. "It's Beck's, but I'm sure you've already figured that out, too."
A sly grin appeared on Tori's face, and she half-shrugged. "I mean, yeah, but." The melody changed again, staccato beats peppered between lingering touches. "It's kind of funny to be wearing your ex's clothes while in bed with someone else, isn't it?"
Jade blinked, but didn't reply immediately. Instead, she watched Tori's face as the implications of what she had said dawned on her. But she didn't have the reaction Jade had anticipated. There was surprise, yes, but not regret, and certainly not any sort of backtracking.
And so Jade decided to answer the question that she knew Tori didn't really expect an answer to.
"It's been my sweatshirt since I stole it out of his car five years ago, so I think the statute of limitations on his ownership of it has expired." She shifted her leg, knee bumping against the outside of Tori's thigh. "And I don't think this counts as "being in bed" with you, Vega."
"Guess not," Tori replied, the grin fading from her face.
They lay there in silence for a few moments. Tori continued to play her unknown melody on Jade's arm, and Jade began to wonder when she stopped hating the thought of allowing another person into her life.
"Can I ask you a question that might piss you off?" Tori asked suddenly. Jade looked down at her, noticing that she had purposefully glanced away from Jade's face.
"I mean, you can ask whatever you want, Vega. I just can't promise that I'll answer."
Tori worried her bottom lip between her teeth. Her fingers began tracing the star tattooed on the inside of Jade's forearm. "Why don't you like your family?"
Jade felt herself stiffen even though she tried to stop her muscles from tensing. Tori glanced up at her, eyes apologetic. "You don't have to answer that, I know I promised to not bring them up, I just..."
"No, it's okay," Jade said, cutting Tori off. Her mouth had gone cotton-dry and so she reached for the glass she had placed on Tori's bedside table, being careful not to pull her arm away from Tori's touch. She took a sip of her drink, then another, before putting it back on the table and turning back towards her. "It's honestly nothing in particular. I just...we don't get along. Never have. They wanted me to become a lawyer and follow in the family business, and I obviously didn't do that. I went to a liberal arts college instead of Stanford, and got a drama degree instead of a law degree, and so they told me that I was on my own and I said fine and never went home again." She shrugged. "I never needed them, or anyone else. Couldn't see the point of chasing after someone else's pride when the only validation I need is my own."
"They disowned you just because you didn't do what they wanted you to do?" Tori was horrified. "Didn't they see just how successful you were? For Pete's sake, you literally sold two movies while still in college!"
"Never bothered to tell them about them," Jade replied. "And I don't know if disown is the right word. I mean, it probably is, I just haven't ever asked about their wills or anything. But yeah." She turned her head and met Tori's gaze. "You're lucky. You have parents who love you, and friends who love you. Don't take them for granted."
"You act like there's no one out there that loves you," Tori whispered, and Jade realized that there was something hidden behind those dark brown eyes; something that Jade couldn't figure out, but she was fairly certain it had nothing to do with the alcohol they had drank.
She laughed, just once, and looked away from Tori's gaze. "I mean, I don't really have any friends. The friends I thought I had were really Beck's friends in the end, so."
"Aren't we friends?"
Jade thought about Tori's question for a long moment, noticing how she had stopped tracing her tattoo. "Is that what we are?"
She watched as Tori's gaze came back up to look towards her face. She wasn't completely sure, but she thought that she caught her eyes lingering on her lips for just a moment.
(Her mouth went dry at the thought)
"Is that what you want to be?" Tori finally said.
Jade's eyebrows rose sharply. "Pardon?"
Tori held her gaze for another second before looking back down at her tattoo and shaking her head. "Nevermind, I...look, I've had a lot to drink, and I'm kinda just spouting nonsense at this point, so..."
Jade thought about arguing with her, thought about pressing the issue because she wanted to know, dammit, but then Tori was turning over and the moment had passed.
"Tori?"
"Will you stay?" Tori's voice was hesitant and quiet and Jade knew that there was no way that she would be able to refuse her.
"Would you like me to?"
Tori sat up, scooting up the bed far enough so that she could pull back the covers on her side and slip underneath them. She managed to do so without looking at Jade even once. "If you don't mind? I mean, you don't have to, I know you have a giant bed over in your apartment and I'm sure that-"
Jade stood up, getting off of the bed only long enough to pull back her own covers. She climbed underneath them, pulling the blanket over herself, but she kept a reasonable distance between them, unsure of Tori's comfort level (and her own, if she was being honest).
"Thank you," she heard Tori whisper. She hummed in reply, resting her head on Tori's extra pillow.
She tried to focus on the sound of Tori breathing, the long, slow exhalations that signified that the other woman had fallen asleep, but it was hard to do over the pounding of her own heartbeat. But she tried anyway, and without meaning to, she eventually found herself drifting off as well.
Day 60
When Jade woke up, she was immediately aware of three things: One, that she much warmer than she was when she had fallen asleep, almost to the point of being unbearably hot. Two, that her head ached a lot. And three, that there was a body pressed flush against her chest, held there securely by her own arm.
This third realization caused her eyes to fly open. Light flooded into her vision, making her head hurt even more, but she blinked away the pain so that she could see what she already knew was there: Tori Vega, fast asleep in her arms.
(Fuck)
Her first instinct was to quickly pull her arm away, but she managed to stop herself before doing so. The last thing she wanted to do was wake Tori up with the movement, because that would inevitably lead to some kind of uncomfortable conversation and Jade was not about to have one of those while her head was throbbing the way it was.
"Mmm," she heard Tori hum, and she froze, worried that she had somehow woken her. But Tori just shifted so that her back was pressed even tighter against Jade's front, sighing softly in her sleep as she settled.
(Fuck)
She thought about slipping away gently and making a clean break for it. Tori had drank a lot, she probably wouldn't remember that she had asked her to stay, right?
"Jade?"
(FUCK)
"Mhm?" she found herself replying, unable to keep the arm that was wrapped around Tori's stomach from tensing.
"My head feels like a porcupine decided to make my brain its nest." Tori's voice was raspy with sleep, and Jade wasn't even sure that she was completely awake.
"Do porcupines make nests?"
Tori began to turn over, but stopped suddenly when she realized what positions they were in. Jade's heart slammed against her chest as she waited for Tori to say something. Anything.
"Uh...yeah. I think they do." And then she was turning over, carefully so that Jade's arm didn't slip, and Jade was suddenly face-to-face with a smirking Tori Vega.
"Comfortable?" Tori asked, and Jade finally pulled her arm away with a groan.
"Shut up," she muttered, rolling onto her other side so that she didn't have to keep looking at that smirk. "It's not my fault that you decided to get all up-close and touchy-feely in the middle of the night."
"Uh huh," Tori said, and Jade felt a finger poking the middle of her back. "Because I'm definitely the one who had herself all wrapped around you, right?"
Jade's cheeks burned, and she was thankful Tori couldn't see how red she became. "Do I look like a cuddly person to you, Vega?"
There was suddenly an arm around her stomach, and she was distinctly aware of the forehead resting on her shoulder and the chest pressed against her back. " Yep!"
Jade groaned again and tried to get up, but Tori's arm held her fast. "You're literally the worst, Vega."
"Oh, shut up, you know you love it."
"What, being accosted in my sleep? Oh yeah, I'm super into that."
"I'm pretty sure that is definitely not what happened," Tori said, but her arm pulled away all the same.
"Prove it," Jade muttered, ignoring the way that part of her missed the way Tori had held her. She sat up, dangling her legs off the side of the bed. "I'm going to go drown my hangover in shitty coffee. Want some?"
"Cream and sugar, please!" Tori replied cheerfully, but Jade could hear a tinge of something else in her voice that she chose not to focus on.
"We've been out of "cream" for a month now, Vega."
"Yeah, well, a girl can dream, can't she?"
Jade rolled her eyes, wincing as the motion made her head throb even more. "Keep dreaming," she said, before walking out of the bedroom and away from the gaze that she knew followed her.
Day 63
They didn't talk about it.
Jade knew that Tori wanted to. She could see the questions dancing in the other woman's eyes when she thought Jade wasn't looking, could see the words forming on her lips before they were replaced with a laugh or a comment on whatever asinine thing they had on the television. And she supposed that she was thankful for that, because it meant that the tether that held their impromptu friendship together didn't have to fray.
But there was also a part of her that wanted Tori to ask. That wanted her to explain what she meant that night when she asked if friends was what Jade wanted them to be. Jade was pretty sure that she knew what she had meant, because she wasn't dumb; she had caught the lingering glances and the sighs that Tori thought she couldn't hear, and it wasn't like she didn't feel something for the petite singer who had literally fallen into her life but-
Feelings sucked. And she didn't want to destroy the only real relationship in her life, especially considering they were literally under a forced quarantine that, with every passing day, seemed like it would never end. So she kept it inside and pretended that she didn't see the hurt in Tori's eyes whenever she shied away from her touch.
And they didn't talk about it.
Day 71
Jade barely checked the news anymore. It just wasn't worth it, for the most part. Seeing the updated death tolls every day did nothing except depress her, and it wasn't like she ever wanted to hear about whatever dumbass thing the President decided to say or do that particular day.
But, for whatever reason, she found herself browsing the headlines on her computer that morning. And that's how she saw it:
Meteor Shower Begins Tonight.
She clicked on the link below the headline and read the brief article that popped up, then read it once more before closing the lid of her laptop. She laced her fingers behind her head and leaned back in her chair, the spark of an idea already forming in her head.
(This is a bad idea, she thought. But she went ahead and started planning anyway because if she was going to go down hard, at least she'd go down in style.)
Day 72
She considered knocking on the door to Tori's apartment, but given that it was 1 a.m., she figured that maybe she should call her first.
It took five rings before Tori answered with a sleepy "Jade? What's wrong?"
"Throw on something warm and meet me in the hallway."
There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment, and Jade could picture Tori pulling the phone away from her ear to check the time on the screen. Her prediction was right when Tori's voice came through the speaker again. "You do realize that it's 1:17 in the morning, right?"
"Yep! Now come on and hurry that tiny ass of yours' up, I don't have all day!"
"It's not tiny," she heard Tori grumble, but she could also hear the shuffling sound of her getting out of bed in the background. "Give me five minutes."
The line went dead, and Jade shoved the phone back in the pocket of her jeans before leaning against the wall next to Tori's door, shifting her weight from foot to foot nervously as she waited.
It took seven minutes for Tori to finally open the door, and by that time, Jade had considered chickening out at least thirty times. But she didn't, and when Tori stepped out into the hallway, she was greeted with Jade's trademark smirk.
"Took you long enough."
Tori shot her a look. "You woke me up in the middle of the night and didn't even tell me why. You're lucky I'm out here at all."
Jade tipped her head towards her and hummed in acknowledgment. "I suppose that's true." She let her eyes glance down at Tori's attire, her smirk growing. "Nice outfit."
Tori looked down at her own clothes, holding her arms out to the side. "You said to dress warm! What's wrong with pajama pants and a hoodie?"
"Oh, nothing," Jade said with a sing-song lilt in her voice. "I like the taco pants, truly. They're super cute and definitely don't make you look like a child at all."
"You're just jealous that you don't have a pair of taco pants, too," Tori muttered.
"Yeah, that's definitely it," Jade said with a laugh, dodging the feather-light punch that Tori threw towards her shoulder.
"Ass," Tori grumbled. "So are you going to tell me what you wanted, or are we just going to stand out here?"
Jade leaned over, grabbing her backpack off of the floor before straightening up and shooting a sly grin in Tori's direction. "It's a surprise, so you'll just have to wait until we get there."
"Get where?"
Jade shrugged and began to walk towards the stairwell at the end of the hallway. "I told you. It's a surprise."
It took a moment for Tori to follow her, but she did, just like Jade knew she would.
"Should I be concerned that you know how to pick locks?" Tori asked, watching as Jade expertly fiddled with the bobby-pin in the door's lock, twisting and pushing just so until the latch snapped open.
Jade shrugged, turning the doorknob and pushing the door open. "I mean, honestly, it's one of the less interesting things about me."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah." Jade held the door open for her, stepping aside so she could usher her inside. "After you, Vega."
Tori walked inside, blinking away the spots in her eyes that formed when the fluorescent lights above her flicked on. Once she could properly see again, she looked around the room, her brow furrowing. "You drug me out of bed just so you could bring me to a janitor's closet?" Her eyes grew wide. "Oh god, you're planning on murdering me here, aren't you?"
Jade rolled her eyes and shut the door behind them. "Oh yeah, that's definitely what I'm planning on doing. No better place to brutally kill someone than a janitor's closet!" Tori's expression didn't change, and Jade fought off the urge to face-palm. "Jesus, Vega, do you really think I'd kill you?"
"I mean, you do carry scissors on you at all times," Tori said, her eyes glancing down to the waistband of Jade's jeans.
"You mean these scissors?" Jade asked, pulling them out of the pocket of her jacket. Tori jumped back, and Jade couldn't help but laugh at the fearful look on her face. "Vega! I'm not going to kill you!"
"Then why do you have scissors in your pocket?!"
She shrugged. "Why not?"
"You're so weird," Tori muttered, eyeing the scissors with distrust. Jade rolled her eyes again and shoved them back in her pocket, being careful to not snag the blades against the leather.
"Anyway," Jade began. "Now that we've clarified that I'm not going to murder you, can we keep going?"
"Keep going? Where the hell can we go? We're in a frickin janitor's closet!"
"Oh ye of little faith." Jade moved past Tori and began shoving stacks of trash cans towards the other side of the closet. Tori watched, the confused expression on her face only growing when a short staircase with a door at the end of it that had been hidden behind the cans came into view.
"A secret door?"
Jade looked at her over her shoulder and winked before starting to climb the stairs. "A secret door. Wanna see where it leads?"
She didn't have to ask twice. Tori was next to her in a second, and Jade gestured towards the doorknob. "Go ahead."
Tori opened the door.
"Oh my god."
Tori moved forward, stepping onto the roof. She walked a few steps before pausing and turning in a slow circle. "Oh my God."
"Geez, Vega, it's like you've never been on top of a building before," Jade joked, expecting Tori to turn and shoot a nasty look in her direction. But, she didn't. Instead, she continued to slowly rotate, her eyes never leaving the city skyline.
"It's so dark," Tori whispered. "I've never seen L.A. without all its lights on before."
"Guess that's what happens when the world is on fire." Jade walked past her and set her backpack on the ground. She knelt next to it and began pulling out its contents: a blanket that she spread out on the cement next to her, then a small bluetooth speaker. She shrugged off her jacket and folded it once before setting it on the blanket.
Tori tilted her head up. "You can actually see the stars," she said, her voice almost breathless with wonder.
"I know." Jade pulled her phone out and connected it to the speaker. She turned the volume down low before selecting a playlist of acoustic songs that she had spent far too much time curating that afternoon. "It's perfect for a meteor shower, isn't it?"
"What?" Tori turned, finally looking towards Jade and the set-up next to her. "Did you say meteor shower?"
"Yeah. I saw that there's one tonight, and I thought that maybe you would want to see it? So...yeah." She glanced down, trying to hide the blush spreading across her cheeks. "Besides, I don't know about you but I haven't breathed any fresh air in weeks,and- oof!"
The impact of Tori's embrace knocked the wind out of her, and she stumbled backwards, barely stopping herself from toppling over. Tori's arms were tight around her, and Jade was pretty sure that if she squeezed any tighter, she'd fracture a rib. But instead of pushing her away, she hugged her back.
"Thank you," Tori whispered, her voice muffled against Jade's shirt. Jade tried not to notice that her hair smelled like lavender.
"You're...welcome?"
Tori held onto her for another moment before she stepped back, giving her a quizzical look. "You took your jacket off?"
"Well, yeah, we needed something to use as a pillow, didn't we?" Jade sat down on the blanket and tapped the spot next to her before lying down completely. "Care to join me?"
Tori eyed the blanket for a moment, noting how it really wasn't very big, but then she lowered herself next to Jade anyway. She let her head come to rest on the leather jacket, thankful for its support as she stared up at the sky.
For a few minutes, the only sound came from the music that wafted over them from the speaker that Jade had set up. Jade had worried that Tori wouldn't enjoy the songs she had picked, but from the way that Tori's hand had begun tapping along with the beat of the song currently playing, it seemed that that worry had been unfounded.
And then:
"Jade!" Tori's arm shot up into the air, finger aimed at a section of the sky slightly to their left. "Look!"
Jade's eyes quickly followed Tori's hand, just barely seeing a glimpse of the tail of a shooting star burning across the atmosphere before it disappeared. "Holy shit! Was that a meteor?"
"Yeah!"
"That was so cool!"
Tori let her hand drop back down between them, and shifted so that she lay slightly on her side and looked at Jade, who was still staring at the stars with a child-like wonder that Tori was pretty sure she hadn't ever seen her have before. "Jade? Haven't you ever seen a shooting star before?"
Jade was hesitant to tear her eyes away from the sky, not wanting to miss anything. "Not that I can remember. And I think I would remember something so..."
"Magical?"
Jade finally looked away from the stars so that she could shoot Tori a bemused look. "I mean, I don't think I'd go that far, but..."
Tori smiled at her, then rolled over onto her back again. "You know that it was, don't deny it."
If Tori had still been facing her, Jade would have rolled her eyes just for show. But she wasn't, and so she didn't. Instead, she mirrored Tori's position and stared back up at the sky. "It was definitely something," she mused.
The song changed, though Jade didn't notice it until she heard Tori humming along to it beside her. She was going to comment on it, was going to say that she should just go ahead and start singing along, but Tori spoke before she got the chance.
"You know that you're supposed to make a wish, right?"
Jade arched an eyebrow, but didn't look away from the sky. "Like, on the stars?"
"On a shooting star, yeah! We didn't get to make a wish with the first one, but we could have a wish prepared for the next one we see!"
"Isn't that a little corny, Vega?"
She felt Tori shrug next to her, her shoulder bumping into hers'. "I mean, I guess, but couldn't we use a wish or two? It can't hurt."
"Still sounds a little corny," Jade said, but she began thinking about what she would wish for, and she knew Tori was probably doing the same because it took another minute for her to start humming along to the music again.
Her eyes scanned the sky, not lingering in one spot for too long for fear of missing anything not visible in the periphery. She realized that she had never really taken the time to look up before; not that it would have mattered much, given that she had spent her entire life in Los Angeles and the light pollution made seeing much more than the moon and a few errant stars here and there pretty difficult. But now that the city had all but come to a halt, the sky was full of light and it made her heart almost ache.
A flash to her right, and she found herself twisting and pointing towards it with her left hand while her right grabbed Tori's hand to get her attention.
"There!" she practically shouted, unable to hide the excitement in her voice.
"Make your wish!" she heard Tori say, and even though it was corny as all hell, she wished upon that star with everything she had until it had burned out of sight.
Then she realized that she hadn't let go of Tori's hand yet. Not that she really could, since the other woman had intertwined their fingers together so tightly that pulling her hand away would be anything but inconspicuous. And besides, she didn't really mind, because Tori's hand was soft in her own and-
"Did you make a wish?" Tori asked, and Jade realized that she had turned to look at her, so she shifted so she could look at her, too.
"Yeah. Did you?"
Tori nodded, and Jade felt her thumb rub along the back of her hand. "What did you wish for?"
"Isn't it bad luck to tell anyone else what you wished for? Basically dooming the wish to never come true, or something like that?"
Tori half-shrugged, squeezing Jade's hand gently. "I don't know if you've noticed, but luck doesn't really seem to matter much these days. And as for the not coming true part...well, I don't know, really. Guess it would depend on what the wish is."
"I see." Jade swallowed past the nervous lump in her throat, wishing her mouth didn't feel quite so dry. "If I tell you my wish, will you tell me what yours' was?"
"Of course. That would only be fair, right?"
"Right." She took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a brief moment to collect herself. When she re-opened them, she let her gaze meet Tori's own, those deep brown eyes seeming impossibly dark in the night. "I wished that you would just go ahead and kiss me, already."
Her heart had already been beating a tattoo against her chest, but when she saw Tori's eyes grow wide, she was pretty sure that she was going to have a full-on heart attack. She was about to backtrack and try to laugh it off, certain that she had somehow completely misread the situation, when Tori began to smile.
"Huh," Tori said. "What a coincidence! I wished for the same thing."
Jade had barely had the chance to process Tori's words before they were both surging forward, lips meeting halfway in a messy, heated kiss. There was a desperation in the way that their lips parted against each other, a shared need that left them gasping for breath. And once they had caught their breath, inhaling the fresh air around them like they had been starved for it, Jade's hand found its way into Tori's chestnut locks and pulled her in again. This kiss was far more gentler, though; rather than filled with desperation, it was filled with tenderness and warmth and the unspoken things that had hung between them for months.
"Jesus," Jade said breathlessly once she pulled away. "That was..." She trailed off, words escaping her.
"Yeah," Tori finished. "It sure was."
They looked at each other for a long moment, with Jade certain that her face was going to start aching if she kept smiling as widely as she was. But Tori was smiling back at her, so how could she stop?
"So, was this all an elaborate plan to get me to make out with you, or...?" Tori began, and Jade laughed.
"Maybe just a little bit, yeah." She smirked, and tucked a strand of hair behind Tori's ear. "But it worked, didn't it?"
"Of course it did," Tori answered, leaning into Jade's palm. "I never stood a chance."
"Mhm," Jade hummed, and she leaned in to press a gentle kiss against her lips. "Neither did I."
They pulled away again, but their hands remained clasped between them as they looked up towards the sky.
"What now?" Tori asked, and Jade shrugged.
"I don't really know. I didn't really think past this point, just in case you turned me down."
Another meteor zipped across the sky above them, burning out almost as quickly as it appeared. Jade felt Tori grip her hand a little tighter, and she reciprocated the pressure, leaning closer to her so that her head rested against her shoulder.
"Do you think that this will all be over soon?" Tori paused, thinking about what she said and how it could have been construed. "The pandemic, I mean."
Jade shrugged again. "Don't have a clue. Probably not for a while, if the CDC projections prove to be accurate and all." She watched Tori's face fall, and she knew she had to say something to bring back her smile. "But, I do know one thing."
"Yeah?" Tori asked, her curiosity piqued. "What's that?"
"I wouldn't want to brave the apocalypse with anyone other than you."
The smile returned to Tori's face, and Jade found herself beaming right back at her. "You're a bit of a sap, West."
"Are you complaining?"
"God, no." Tori brought their lips together again, and although Jade wanted to say something else, wanted to make one of her trademark wisecracks, perhaps, she found that words weren't necessary when Tori was doing that.
And so she closed her eyes and let herself be happy, truly happy, for what felt like the first time in forever, apocalypse be damned.