Fractured World
Disclaimer: Don't own Victorious or iCarly
A/N:
Chapter 5 (Family Connections)
Pat Benatar's Heartbreaker played through Spencer's car, to which Tori couldn't help but smile. There had been a brief mention that while Sasha favored classic rock and Spencer favored classic country, they enjoyed most genres including the eighties pop music.
Tori didn't say outright when Spencer made a remark about 'kids these days' not knowing some of the older artists out there; but she always had a bit of an old soul. When it came to music, she did enjoy Pat Benatar, Cyndi Lauper, Joan Jett; but she also loved classic rock and the music from the fifties and sixties. Be it Fats Domino, Frank Sinatra, or even Patsy Cline, it was all music she liked to listen to when she was by herself.
To her, Hollywood Arts pushed a lot of modern pop music, which she didn't care much for in truth. There were some modern pop songs that she liked, and she wasn't sold on favoring a single genre either; but now if anyone asked her to try and sing, it felt as though she'd curse them out instead.
Her truest favorite was mainstream rock, and one of the more modern rock artists out there was Elizabeth Hale of the band Halestorm. When it came to relatability, several of her songs resonated with her.
It had been Courtney who suggested to her that music as therapy was a thing, she never thought much of it until listening to Joan Jett's song Fake Friends.
"We're almost there." Spencer's voice drew her from her thoughts and she raised her head away from the window she'd been resting it on. She had to catch her breath when she saw the brown brick home they were pulling up towards.
The house an front yard were raised up with a brick framing the yard, separated by a sidewalk and steps in the center. Looking towards the home, on the left was a high, vaulted ceiling with two square windows at the top, two long windows beneath them and two square windows beneath those. The space between them looked almost like a cross, giving off a chapel vibe.
The front porch had a red tile floor, brown brick wall on the left of the door and an opening on the right where a wooden pillar connected the outermost right corner of the floor and rooftop.
The right side of the house was longer, and tiny shrubs lined the sides, there were two long windows facing the yard. A driveway went up and wrapped around the right of the home; but Spencer was pulling up alongside the brick mailbox in the front.
"There's likely a bunch of cars in the back."
Tori was near intimidated, unsure if she was as confident as she thought she'd been. Still, she followed slowly out of the car with a fresh wave of anxiety. "Their home is massive, Spencer." She heard him chuckle and followed him up the steps.
Her gaze focused on the brown wood front door and the large oval window with fogged glass and black lines going across the window in the shape of diamonds. To the right of the door was a long rectangular window and above it was a typed note that said "No Soliciting: Occupants Resting". It brought a light smile to her face.
The scent of freshly cut grass filled her nostrils and she raised her gaze to the large oak tree on the left. The tree's leaves shimmered in the sun, calming her just a bit.
When she looked back to the door, she saw John and Lillian standing there. "Spencer," John said, "Come on in." She heard Spencer thank the man and kept close to him and Ian as they walked inside.
Stepping into the home was like stepping into a brand new world as a wave of emotions and smells came at her like a tsunami. She lifted her eyebrows and her lips parted as she scanned the area.
Everything was wide open, with a large carpeted den to her immediate left, a carpeted dining area to her right and a smaller living room in front of her. A bar area with wooden swinging doors separated the den and living room. The dining area had a grandfather clock overlooking a large oval table which sat in front of a China cabinet. This dining area was an island of white carpeting with a brick pillar at the corner just a few feet from where Tori stood. There was a red tile walkway that led to the living room and also turned at an angle towards the right, leading to a brown door.
The ceiling above her head was low, but when she looked at the den, she was amazed by the extremely high ceiling.
Carly passed by her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright, Tori?"
She stumbled over her words and shook her head. "I don't think I've been in a house this big." Hell, the home she was raised in may have been a two story house, but it was fairly small.
"They've lived here for over thirty years now," Spencer stated, "It's a good house, spacious and well…" He trailed off for a moment, walking forward and looking around. "I can say there's been a lot of memories here." She watched his lips spread into a widening grin and grew both curious and skeptical when he peered past the bar countertop to an wooden archway. "Let me just say I got 'banned' for a while."
Tori pursed her lips and studied Spencer's reddening face. "What for? Did you tick them off?"
"Putting it mildly." He ran his hand over his neck and she heard him mumble, likely trying not to be loud enough to hear. "A lot of youthful experiments happened in the back bedroom." She still didn't quite understand, but after a few seconds of pondering and remembering that her parents were young teenagers when they conceived her, she threw her hand up over her mouth to stifle a gasp.
"Well." She watched Carly slide her hands to her hips and arch an eyebrow. "I guess if you're going to be a rebellious teenager, don't just break the rules at your strict parent's home, do it at your even stricter grandparents house. Sure."
Spencer sighed. "It wasn't exactly like that, Carly. I'm not comfortable talking about this right now."
"Of course not, Tori's already been through enough trauma." She wanted to make a sarcastic remark herself, but couldn't bring herself to do it. Still, there was a strangeness to realizing that the likelihood she was conceived in this very house was a possibility. She wasn't sure whether to be disturbed or intrigued by the prospect.
Realizing no one other than John and Lillian were around, Tori decided to go ahead and break the ice with her great-grandparents. "Are we the first ones here?"
"Yes," Lillian replied. There was a soft, wrinkled smile on the woman's round face that brought Tori a small amount of comfort. "Mark and Jenny needed to make a stop because Jacob was thirsty. All that running around." The woman had a warm, hearty laugh soothing to Tori's ears. "Rosa's gone back to the retirement facility to get cleaned up."
John cleared his throat and motioned towards Spencer. "Actually, your father and granddad did arrive a few minutes ago."
Lillian let out an astonished gasp and raised a hand towards her lips. "Oh that's right, they're in the computer room. Did I turn the coffee on?"
"Yes."
Lillian closed her eyes and her smile seemed to grow. "Victoria, is it?" Tori cringed inwardly, feeling a sharp and fresh hate for the name. She didn't understand it, but then no one had called her by her full name except Holly and David.
"Actually, I go by Tori." She tried to smile, fighting back the urge to scream or hiss at her name. Trying to joke, she pulled off her smile and shut her eyes. "That's pending too."
"Well, Tori, would you like me to show you around? I love our high ceilings and how open everything is."
"That would be great, actually." She looked to her right, where Ian was standing. "By the way, this is my boyfriend. Ian." She watched him smiled and wave, then noticed John slowly looking at him. The elder lifted his chin up a bit and started to hum. "Now, given the circumstances here…" She spoke slowly, looking from John and Lillian to Spencer. She'd already explained this to him, but still felt that Spencer may be a bit more on the concerned side. "Ian and I are doing our best to abstain, and given recent discoveries; it's not something I'm really interested in exploring right now."
Ian breathed out and turned to John with a smile. "So, Mr. Grayson, I think?" John nodded. "Do you do much handiwork at all?" Just then, the corners of John's mouth slid into a grin.
"I've done a lot of things in my lifetime. I know my way around a few mechanical things."
Spencer started to chuckle, drawing Tori's ears. "He's got a million stories of the things he's done. You know he was a disc jockey for a few years." Tori's eyebrows rose and she saw John's eyes light up. "Man, well before karaoke was a thing people were hooking up their own studios and just singing cover after cover." Spencer walked over and pat the elder on the shoulder, looking over to Tori. "He's got a playlist of country songs, gospel songs, you name it all recorded and saved on CDs, computers, flash drives…"
This was astonishing and somewhat of a surprise to hear. "I didn't know music was that big of a thing in the family." Spencer let out a sigh and lowered his hand to his side.
"Well, Michael did the same thing because that's always been a hobby for him. So, Sasha would often sing with him when she was a kid. They've got recordings of her as young as six years old singing 'I Saw the Light' and other stuff."
As he said this, Tori could hear familiar music playing faintly nearby. She scrunched her face and everyone grew quiet. She walked slowly towards the living room, turning to the left and looking through the wooden archway that led to a hallway. On the other side of the hallway was an open door where two older men were seated at a computer desk and computer.
"I recognize this song." It was Crazy by Patsy Cline. Still, the vocals were different, it wasn't Patsy Cline singing. Her heartbeat slowed and she listened with growing intensity.
The singer was younger, there was a noticeable pain in the soft tone that was believable. Tori folded her hands over each other and bowed her head, her breathing grew shifty as fresh tears began to mentally sing along with the singer she was now sure was her mother.
"Worry…why do I let myself worry. Wondering, what in the world did I do." Her body started to shake as her mother's haunting, yet gentle voice drew her in. The sadness spoke volumes and she started to think of Holly and David and her former friends. "Crazy for thinking that my love could hold you. I'm crazy for trying, and I'm crazy for crying and I'm crazy…for loving you…" She breathed in deep, raising her head slowly and grinding her teeth behind closed lips.
In her peripheral she saw Spencer approach and turned to him, tears were beginning to slide away from his eye and he swept them away fast. "That's my favorite of the covers she's done, but it's also the saddest one."
"Why does she seem so sad? I mean, the way she sings it, it's like she gets it…"
"Sasha and I knew each other for a while before we were together. Believe it or not, I was not the first person she actually dated." Tori blinked a couple times and started to hum, curiouser now than before. "She dated another gamer kid that was a few grade levels above us. He was pushy, a bit aggressive and well." She watched her father's face turn to that of frustration, his forehead creasing as his hands started to close. "He wanted to be like all the cool popular kids, and what were those kids doing? Ditching school, getting high, having sex; but she was like fucking twelve and knew she wasn't going to be doing all that…He ended up cheating on her with some girls closer to his age, and bragged about it."
Her stomach flipped in disgust and she started to growl. At the same time, she couldn't shake the realization that it wasn't that much before Sasha was fourteen and pregnant with her. "So, hold on, she got hurt by a jackass because he cheated with girls that were more likely to have sex; but then got pregnant with me? By you." She raised an eyebrow and Spencer ran his hand down his neck.
"Yes. We were young, she was upset over what happened and eventually she wanted to know what the big deal was." Tori frowned as Spencer closed his eyes and lowered his voice, clearly in Tori's mind he wasn't fully ready to discuss it. Still, he was willing to answer this pertinent question. "Since we were close and decided to start dating, she wanted to know what the big deal about sex was. You have to realize also this was after the eighties, after the sexual revolution and all this sexualization in media started to come about."
"Okay."
"We were just two very curious teenagers and we weren't really that understanding of the risks because in both of our families it wasn't really a thing that anyone talked about."
She understood and it was certainly interesting to hear. The more morbid side of her was amused that her mere existence was because Sasha wanted to know what the big deal was after her first boyfriend dumped her over her not wanting to put out. Assuming that the initial interaction was the thing.
"Sorry to kind of drag you into that conversation right now, Spencer." He gave a half-smile and looked sideways towards her, his eyebrows slowly curling in the center.
"You have a right to know. Any questions you have, anything. That's one of the things Sasha and I promised each other during her pregnancy was that we would do our best to never hold anything back from our kid. We wanted you to be able to learn from the world, experience the world." His voice broke for a second and he turned his head away, coughing. "Sorry." He took a breath and closed his eyes. "We wanted to be there for your hard times, your good times. So that we could try and prepare you for life…"
Feeling her heart skip, she slowly moved forward to hug him. As she wrapped her arms around him, she heard him gasp and felt his body twitch slightly. After a second, he slid his arms around her, carefully, and placed his chin on top of her head.
"I'm sorry I couldn't be a part of your life, Tori. I'm sorry I couldn't help you through the good, the bad…" His chest shifted and she heard a sob drift from his mouth. "I couldn't protect you or your mother."
"You're here now." The moisture in her eyes blurred her vision and the wetness that slid to her mouth had a salty taste. He took a deep breath and pulled away, quickly wiping her face. "Better late than never."
"Yeah…"
"So, mom and grandpa enjoyed singing?"
"It was a family hobby. I remember Christmases and family get-togethers where Mike would break out his audio and sound equipment and the whole family would sing whatever they felt like." He ran his hand through his hair and started to chuckle. "I was always too nervous to include myself, so Sasha would actually drag me into it."
"I used to like singing. I really was the only one. I mean, Trina tried but I'm not sure how much of any of that was real…no one in that household could sing, I just listened to music I liked and tried to match the singer."
"Usually how it goes." She bit her lip and looked to the computer room where the two older men were now staring back at them. She wondered why they hadn't gotten up, but figured they might be waiting and not wanting to interrupt.
She looked back at Spencer and cleared her throat. "Ian found out that everything was a lie." She looked to the living room, thinking about sitting down. The widescreen television sat atop an oak stand, overlooking two brown recliners with a small end table between them. To the left of the recliner was a long, two cushion sofa and an end table with a lamp positioned in the corner between the sofa and wall.
Deciding this was the best place to be, she made her way to the end of the sofa closest to the corduroy recliner. Spencer followed slowly behind, sitting with her and gazing at her with a sorrowful expression.
"It would've been nice to feel like there was something real there. Hollywood Arts was a front used by Holly, and I was sent there to be watched over." She tucked her hair over her ear and suppressed a growl. "I was to be groomed. Performing just makes me think of that, singing and everything…I started to doubt that I even enjoyed any of it."
"I'm sorry."
Tori looked back towards the hallway. She clasped her hands together and closed her eyes as she heard more music coming. "I guess dad and Granddad wanted to listen to some of the old recordings too."
"You said you and Mom knew each other for a while?"
"Yes, military families. Both our dads served in the air force together. Grandpa John was in the air force. She was thinking about enlisting herself when she got old enough."
Now it made sense why Spencer's family would even be here. The more she listened to the music coming from the other room, the more she wanted to hear her mother again.
"I want to listen to her song that was on." Spencer smiled a bit and slowly rose from the couch. Tori looked towards the kitchen on her left as he walked into the other room.
The kitchen had a subtle peach tile floor, a peninsula that had two stools right at the border of the carpet and tile, and swept down the middle of the kitchen. There was a small alcove that a round table with four chairs nested. Above the table was an overhead light fixture that had a yellow hood around a bulb.
Where the L-shaped peninsula ended were two ovens just two feet away, facing the countertop. The ovens were stacked. There was a microwave to the left and a stove to the right, and on the other side of the stove was a white refrigerator.
"Nice kitchen." Tori breathed out slowly as her mother's voice began to fill the room. Her body started to shake as she hunched forward and closed her eyes. She tensed her forehead and her lips pressed firmly together as the corners of her mouth dug into her cheeks.
Thoughts here?
