AN: It's me again. Well, I just want to try and explain where I'm going
with the Chris thing a bit more. You see, I was looking at this story one
day and I realized that Torrie is pretty blah. She's ok, don't get me
wrong, but she reacts to everything like a sweet little perfect girl. The
only thing she ever really took the way a real person would was her
reaction to her dad coming back and Dom cheating on her. Everything else
pretty much seems to go her way. But because she's so sweet we all like it
when things go her way. But that doesn't really help her in the real
department. I think she reacted to the way Chris talked to her the way a
real person would if they were in a similar amount stress. And she was out
of line. So she's going to have to own up to that and grow as a character.
That's a good thing. And Chris will be less strange as she gets over her
own issues. And she's been a bit of a bitch too. I don't know if they'll
ever be friends, but I think I have a few tricks to at least have them get
along up my sleeve. Let's just see where it goes. Torrie's not totally
unlikeable right now either. I mean, how would you feel if you thought your
boyfriend cheated on you then someone rubbed his absence in your face? I
don't like how either girl acted but I understand and I sympathize with
both. Torrie and Vince are so close because Vince has become good at
picking up the pieces when Dom says/does something stupid to Torrie. And
because Dom thought they were cheating on him with each other and it sort
of drove them together. Dom and Chris hardly know each other. Anyway, on
with the story and try to trust me on the whole situation being a good
thing. Feel free to disagree and tell me why you don't share my views in a
review too. I'm pretty tough. I like the way people are pointing out things
they don't like, it's just that I feel you don't like it because I've sort
of tried to take Torrie and make her grow some, and in order for that to
happen she has to go through this stage where we don't have to like her
much. You gotta admit, even when you liked her she sure could be selfish by
times. LOL.
Chapter 71 – Defining Hysterical Laughter
Chris figured she'd just wait for Vince to get home so they could talk about what had happened that evening. Mia hadn't been joking when she'd told Vince that Chris was hurt that he'd taken Torrie's side by chasing after her. She didn't stick around for the team atmosphere, as pleasant as it was. She stuck around because she thought Vince was nice and cute. But if he was going to spend his time chasing after his best friends girl and letting said girl treat her like shit she figured she may as well go back to her loser ex or home to her parents.
Then Chris saw him come home with the other girl in his arms. Passed out, but in his arms none the less. The line Torrie had tossed out about being able to take her man away if she wanted had started to undermine Chris's fragile self confidence. She'd meant what she'd said about finding Torrie too pale and too skinny to look good but that didn't mean that men didn't find the dark haired girl's look appealing. Chris knew she looked like a girl who didn't need anyone. Torrie looked like she needed all the care she could get and Chris knew a lot of tough guys found the fragile look appealed to their masculinity.
Torrie certainly seemed to be the center of attention everywhere she went and in everything she did, Chris mused, and that meant that the other girl must have something going for her that Chris herself did not. Chris was never the center of attention.
She waited a further few minutes for Vince to come back down the stairs on his way to his own room so she could corner him but he never in that time immerged from upstairs. Chris took herself upstairs to her room on the second floor and got ready for bed. She'd just been starting to feel at home with the Toretto team, sans Torrie, and now she felt like she'd been thrown right back into the roll of the outsider. Even the man who'd taken her on dates and acted like he might have wanted to be her boyfriend was now taking the side of the spiteful witch who'd slapped her.
One thing was certain, Chris mused to herself. Life was never fair to people like her. With that pleasant thought she crawled between her sheets and curled up around herself to go to sleep.
Just as she was finally drifting off she heard Vince's voice from the room next door. She couldn't believe it. Not only had he spent the whole night chasing after the idiot girl who couldn't take care of herself now he was still with her in her room at 3:30am. She got up softly and crept out her door and to the slightly ajar door of the next room.
*~*
"Tor? Angel, wake up!" Vince called softly as he carried Torrie into her room and turned on the light. A soft murmur was the only reply he got as she laid in his arms limply.
"You need to wake up Tor." He tried again. She didn't answer.
He set her on her bed and started to pull her boots off her feet.
"Torrie." He called to her gently again. "Come on Princess, wake up."
"It hurts to wake up." Torrie finally answered in a scratchy voice. "I don't wanna." She whined. "When I'm awake I haveta care."
Vince was just relieved she came around to consciousness. He didn't want to look too hard at what she said because then he'd have to think about how hurt she really was. As things stood he was more then a little hurt by how she'd planned on using him and he wanted to hold onto the hurt so that he could get away from Torrie as quickly as possible. If he had to think about how alone and unsure she was feeling then he'd be more then tempted to let her use him. For the first time he contemplated that his relationship with Torrie might not be as harmless and healthy as they'd all like to think. Vince knew while she was trashed and he was pissed and hurt was not the time to go into it.
"You need to wake up and get ready for bed so you can sleep it off Torrie."
"No. I'll just sleep now." Torrie grumbled and rolled over to her side facing away from Vince.
"I really think you should put on something for bed angel. Come on. It'll just take a minute then you can sleep all night." Vince did his best to convince her to give him his way without a fight.
He thought about how he'd somehow raised Torrie in his mind to a woman who was better then the average woman. He was getting a first hand look at how she was far from perfect right now, but even when he was mad at her, and rightly so he still really thought of her as Angel and Princess. Like she was on a level somehow above other girls. Then he shook his head and told himself that 3:30 in the morning was not the time to get as philosophical as he was.
"You promise that you'll leave me alone to sleep if I change first?" Torrie asked in a childish tone. She wasn't really awake. "All I wanna do is sleep. Everything's ok when I sleep."
"Yeah, I promise I'll leave you alone after you get ready for bed. Get up and change." Vince walked to the window and turned his back on Torrie, assuming she'd get up and do what she had to do while he didn't look at her.
He heard the bed shift and assumed that was when she'd gotten up. He heard three or maybe four footsteps before he heard a crash and a soft cry.
"Torrie?" he asked, concerned.
*~*
She giggled.
"I fell."
She knew it wasn't funny, and she'd hurt her ankle, but she just couldn't stop laughing. Then she started to cry, but she kept laughing at the same time. She was so mixed up she couldn't help herself.
"I got up and went to walk to the dresser and I tripped over the rug. I knew the rug was there, it didn't move lately but I tripped over it anyway. I just wanna go to sleep. Why did the rug want me to fall?" She looked up at Vince inquisitively, sitting on the floor with one leg under her body and the other stuck out in front of her, the rug a tangled mess under her.
"You ok?" Vince walked over to her side.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I think. I just need to stop laughing. Then I'll get up and finish getting changed so you'll let me sleep." She burst into another peel of laughter. "What's wrong with me?" She questioned as she continued to laugh and cry all at once.
"You had a really bad day then dumped half a bar of alcohol on top if it to see if it'd make it go away. I can tell you from experience it doesn't work that way Princess." Vince sighed. "It's not that easy."
"But it was all fine till I had to come home. It was fun again at the club, with Lex." Torrie looked him in the eyes and the laughter stopped. She kept gently crying for another moment as she looked at him. He didn't break her gaze. "You made me come home!" She yelled at him. "This is all your fault! You're the one who made me come home. I didn't want to. I didn't want you to come with me tonight but you made me let you. I wouldn't be home right now if it wasn't for you I'd be out somewhere still! I could show Dom he's not the only one who can pick up someone to fuck in a bar." She started to slap Vince in the chest wildly with both hands from her awkward seat on the rug. "I hate you!" She yelled at Vince and started to cry in earnest.
He looked down at Torrie, more upset then he knew how to articulate for what she was going through. He knew she didn't really hate him, she was just coming down from her drunk and crashing hard. He could have told her that alcohol was a temporary solution to troubles but she'd never asked. He gathered her against his chest and held her tight, despite the fact she was trying to get away and still trying to strike him, so upset she felt the need to lash out physically. Just like she had with Chris.
"You don't hate me Tor. It's gonna be ok. It'll be ok a hell of a lot faster if you just go to bed. Ok?" Vince asked.
She'd stopped fighting him and had moved on to simply sobbing limply in his arms. She didn't answer or look up at him, simply nodded her head as she let him pick her up off the ground on to her feet, her arms around his neck.
Vince helped her walk to her dresser and started to open her drawer to have her pick out something to wear to bed.
"No. Not from there. I wanna wear one of those to bed." Torrie told Vince and then pointed to one of Dom's wifebeaters on the floor.
She started toward the white article in question and almost fell down again. Vince thought about pointing out the shirt in question was one that Dom had worn right before he'd left and it hadn't yet been washed but he figured out right before he said anything that was likely the point. She wanted to feel like Dom was close to her. He got the shirt for her and handed it to her. She held it to her face for a second.
"I'm wearing this if I have to change."
"Fine Angel, that's fine. Let's go to bed now." Vince told her, talking to her as though she was a small child, trying to keep her calm now that she'd reached a semi calm state.
"Ok V." She answered and allowed him to help her to the bed in the center of the room. She sat down and Vince just got his back turned to her before she blithely pulled her own shirt off over her head. She pulled Dom's on and then stood up to try and get her skin tight pants off.
She got them down to her knees before they hobbled her and she didn't have the balance to get them off on her own, unable to pick up one foot at a time to slide her leg free. Thankfully she fell backwards and landed on the bed.
"You ok?" Vince asked without turning around.
"Yeah." Torrie answered and just lay back, legs hanging over the edge of the bed, still tied together by her pants around her knees. She pictured what it must look like as she lay there in Dom's undershirt with her pants stuck around her knees, too tired to do anything about it and she started to laugh. And once she started again she couldn't stop.
Vince turned around and she made such as strange sight in Dom's shirt with her pants around her legs like they were he started joined her laughing. He couldn't help it. She looked so funny. He walked over to her and started to pull her pants the rest of the way off her legs. She lifted them one at a time to help him out, still laughing so hard tears were pouring down her face, but at least she wasn't crying anymore from despair.
"Ok, there you go baby girl. Things'll look better in the morning."
"You always did like to try and make me happy V, even if it did mean lying to me." Torrie answered with comprehension that should have been beyond her in her state and managed to stop laughing.
Vince realized that she was likely right, he was likely lying to her. She was going to have to talk to both Dom, and deal with the issues with Chris. And she was going to have to do it all hung over.
He shook his head and tucked Torrie into bed under the blankets and went to leave the room, to leave Torrie to sleep.
Chris darted back to her own room and closed the door softly, scared Vince would find out what she'd done, that she'd spied on him with Torrie. He hadn't acted like he wanted to do anything with the other girl. He had ample chance. Torrie was too drunk to do much to stop him, if she even wanted to. But Vince had acted like an older brother might act if his sister did something silly because someone hurt her so terribly.
Vince heard the bed in Dom's room creak just as he reached the door of the room and he spun around to see what was going on. Torrie was stumbling toward him.
"What are you doing out of bed?" He asked, angry as he finally reaching exasperation.
"Gonna be sick." She answered and looked panicked as she ran for the washroom. She was so desperate she made it on her own and got the door closed before he could stop her. He waited by the door.
When 5 minutes later she still hadn't immerged and he hadn't heard Torrie make any noise he knocked.
"You ok?" He called. He didn't get an answer. "Torrie?" He tried again.
When she still didn't answer he tried the door and found it unlocked. He also found Torrie passed out on the bathroom floor.
"This is all I need." He muttered and picked Torrie up, carried her back to bed and set her down.
"V?" Her small voice checked him as he stood up away from her.
"Wha?" He asked her, getting to the end of his endurance for frustration.
"Am I gonna die? I feel so terrible. So cold." She was shivering.
"You're not gonna die." Vince sighed as he took off his shirt and crawled into bed with Torrie for the second stupid time in his life. He couldn't just leave her alone. She could be really sick, after all. She sounded so small, so helpless, so alone. She'd played him all night long and spending the night in his best friend's bed with his best friend's girl was the last thing he wanted to do. But he couldn't leave her to fend for herself. He thought, sanguinely, that he should really have his head examined.
He finally fell asleep after an hour of taciturn thought. Torrie woke him up three times as she rushed the bathroom. He helped her back to bed each time and fell back asleep with her. Around 5am Torrie fell deeply asleep and he heaved a sigh of relief, figuring she was going to be ok to sleep till they woke her up. He drifted back off himself, even though he'd planned on seeking his own bed once he'd realized Torrie was going to be ok.
Chapter 71 – Defining Hysterical Laughter
Chris figured she'd just wait for Vince to get home so they could talk about what had happened that evening. Mia hadn't been joking when she'd told Vince that Chris was hurt that he'd taken Torrie's side by chasing after her. She didn't stick around for the team atmosphere, as pleasant as it was. She stuck around because she thought Vince was nice and cute. But if he was going to spend his time chasing after his best friends girl and letting said girl treat her like shit she figured she may as well go back to her loser ex or home to her parents.
Then Chris saw him come home with the other girl in his arms. Passed out, but in his arms none the less. The line Torrie had tossed out about being able to take her man away if she wanted had started to undermine Chris's fragile self confidence. She'd meant what she'd said about finding Torrie too pale and too skinny to look good but that didn't mean that men didn't find the dark haired girl's look appealing. Chris knew she looked like a girl who didn't need anyone. Torrie looked like she needed all the care she could get and Chris knew a lot of tough guys found the fragile look appealed to their masculinity.
Torrie certainly seemed to be the center of attention everywhere she went and in everything she did, Chris mused, and that meant that the other girl must have something going for her that Chris herself did not. Chris was never the center of attention.
She waited a further few minutes for Vince to come back down the stairs on his way to his own room so she could corner him but he never in that time immerged from upstairs. Chris took herself upstairs to her room on the second floor and got ready for bed. She'd just been starting to feel at home with the Toretto team, sans Torrie, and now she felt like she'd been thrown right back into the roll of the outsider. Even the man who'd taken her on dates and acted like he might have wanted to be her boyfriend was now taking the side of the spiteful witch who'd slapped her.
One thing was certain, Chris mused to herself. Life was never fair to people like her. With that pleasant thought she crawled between her sheets and curled up around herself to go to sleep.
Just as she was finally drifting off she heard Vince's voice from the room next door. She couldn't believe it. Not only had he spent the whole night chasing after the idiot girl who couldn't take care of herself now he was still with her in her room at 3:30am. She got up softly and crept out her door and to the slightly ajar door of the next room.
*~*
"Tor? Angel, wake up!" Vince called softly as he carried Torrie into her room and turned on the light. A soft murmur was the only reply he got as she laid in his arms limply.
"You need to wake up Tor." He tried again. She didn't answer.
He set her on her bed and started to pull her boots off her feet.
"Torrie." He called to her gently again. "Come on Princess, wake up."
"It hurts to wake up." Torrie finally answered in a scratchy voice. "I don't wanna." She whined. "When I'm awake I haveta care."
Vince was just relieved she came around to consciousness. He didn't want to look too hard at what she said because then he'd have to think about how hurt she really was. As things stood he was more then a little hurt by how she'd planned on using him and he wanted to hold onto the hurt so that he could get away from Torrie as quickly as possible. If he had to think about how alone and unsure she was feeling then he'd be more then tempted to let her use him. For the first time he contemplated that his relationship with Torrie might not be as harmless and healthy as they'd all like to think. Vince knew while she was trashed and he was pissed and hurt was not the time to go into it.
"You need to wake up and get ready for bed so you can sleep it off Torrie."
"No. I'll just sleep now." Torrie grumbled and rolled over to her side facing away from Vince.
"I really think you should put on something for bed angel. Come on. It'll just take a minute then you can sleep all night." Vince did his best to convince her to give him his way without a fight.
He thought about how he'd somehow raised Torrie in his mind to a woman who was better then the average woman. He was getting a first hand look at how she was far from perfect right now, but even when he was mad at her, and rightly so he still really thought of her as Angel and Princess. Like she was on a level somehow above other girls. Then he shook his head and told himself that 3:30 in the morning was not the time to get as philosophical as he was.
"You promise that you'll leave me alone to sleep if I change first?" Torrie asked in a childish tone. She wasn't really awake. "All I wanna do is sleep. Everything's ok when I sleep."
"Yeah, I promise I'll leave you alone after you get ready for bed. Get up and change." Vince walked to the window and turned his back on Torrie, assuming she'd get up and do what she had to do while he didn't look at her.
He heard the bed shift and assumed that was when she'd gotten up. He heard three or maybe four footsteps before he heard a crash and a soft cry.
"Torrie?" he asked, concerned.
*~*
She giggled.
"I fell."
She knew it wasn't funny, and she'd hurt her ankle, but she just couldn't stop laughing. Then she started to cry, but she kept laughing at the same time. She was so mixed up she couldn't help herself.
"I got up and went to walk to the dresser and I tripped over the rug. I knew the rug was there, it didn't move lately but I tripped over it anyway. I just wanna go to sleep. Why did the rug want me to fall?" She looked up at Vince inquisitively, sitting on the floor with one leg under her body and the other stuck out in front of her, the rug a tangled mess under her.
"You ok?" Vince walked over to her side.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I think. I just need to stop laughing. Then I'll get up and finish getting changed so you'll let me sleep." She burst into another peel of laughter. "What's wrong with me?" She questioned as she continued to laugh and cry all at once.
"You had a really bad day then dumped half a bar of alcohol on top if it to see if it'd make it go away. I can tell you from experience it doesn't work that way Princess." Vince sighed. "It's not that easy."
"But it was all fine till I had to come home. It was fun again at the club, with Lex." Torrie looked him in the eyes and the laughter stopped. She kept gently crying for another moment as she looked at him. He didn't break her gaze. "You made me come home!" She yelled at him. "This is all your fault! You're the one who made me come home. I didn't want to. I didn't want you to come with me tonight but you made me let you. I wouldn't be home right now if it wasn't for you I'd be out somewhere still! I could show Dom he's not the only one who can pick up someone to fuck in a bar." She started to slap Vince in the chest wildly with both hands from her awkward seat on the rug. "I hate you!" She yelled at Vince and started to cry in earnest.
He looked down at Torrie, more upset then he knew how to articulate for what she was going through. He knew she didn't really hate him, she was just coming down from her drunk and crashing hard. He could have told her that alcohol was a temporary solution to troubles but she'd never asked. He gathered her against his chest and held her tight, despite the fact she was trying to get away and still trying to strike him, so upset she felt the need to lash out physically. Just like she had with Chris.
"You don't hate me Tor. It's gonna be ok. It'll be ok a hell of a lot faster if you just go to bed. Ok?" Vince asked.
She'd stopped fighting him and had moved on to simply sobbing limply in his arms. She didn't answer or look up at him, simply nodded her head as she let him pick her up off the ground on to her feet, her arms around his neck.
Vince helped her walk to her dresser and started to open her drawer to have her pick out something to wear to bed.
"No. Not from there. I wanna wear one of those to bed." Torrie told Vince and then pointed to one of Dom's wifebeaters on the floor.
She started toward the white article in question and almost fell down again. Vince thought about pointing out the shirt in question was one that Dom had worn right before he'd left and it hadn't yet been washed but he figured out right before he said anything that was likely the point. She wanted to feel like Dom was close to her. He got the shirt for her and handed it to her. She held it to her face for a second.
"I'm wearing this if I have to change."
"Fine Angel, that's fine. Let's go to bed now." Vince told her, talking to her as though she was a small child, trying to keep her calm now that she'd reached a semi calm state.
"Ok V." She answered and allowed him to help her to the bed in the center of the room. She sat down and Vince just got his back turned to her before she blithely pulled her own shirt off over her head. She pulled Dom's on and then stood up to try and get her skin tight pants off.
She got them down to her knees before they hobbled her and she didn't have the balance to get them off on her own, unable to pick up one foot at a time to slide her leg free. Thankfully she fell backwards and landed on the bed.
"You ok?" Vince asked without turning around.
"Yeah." Torrie answered and just lay back, legs hanging over the edge of the bed, still tied together by her pants around her knees. She pictured what it must look like as she lay there in Dom's undershirt with her pants stuck around her knees, too tired to do anything about it and she started to laugh. And once she started again she couldn't stop.
Vince turned around and she made such as strange sight in Dom's shirt with her pants around her legs like they were he started joined her laughing. He couldn't help it. She looked so funny. He walked over to her and started to pull her pants the rest of the way off her legs. She lifted them one at a time to help him out, still laughing so hard tears were pouring down her face, but at least she wasn't crying anymore from despair.
"Ok, there you go baby girl. Things'll look better in the morning."
"You always did like to try and make me happy V, even if it did mean lying to me." Torrie answered with comprehension that should have been beyond her in her state and managed to stop laughing.
Vince realized that she was likely right, he was likely lying to her. She was going to have to talk to both Dom, and deal with the issues with Chris. And she was going to have to do it all hung over.
He shook his head and tucked Torrie into bed under the blankets and went to leave the room, to leave Torrie to sleep.
Chris darted back to her own room and closed the door softly, scared Vince would find out what she'd done, that she'd spied on him with Torrie. He hadn't acted like he wanted to do anything with the other girl. He had ample chance. Torrie was too drunk to do much to stop him, if she even wanted to. But Vince had acted like an older brother might act if his sister did something silly because someone hurt her so terribly.
Vince heard the bed in Dom's room creak just as he reached the door of the room and he spun around to see what was going on. Torrie was stumbling toward him.
"What are you doing out of bed?" He asked, angry as he finally reaching exasperation.
"Gonna be sick." She answered and looked panicked as she ran for the washroom. She was so desperate she made it on her own and got the door closed before he could stop her. He waited by the door.
When 5 minutes later she still hadn't immerged and he hadn't heard Torrie make any noise he knocked.
"You ok?" He called. He didn't get an answer. "Torrie?" He tried again.
When she still didn't answer he tried the door and found it unlocked. He also found Torrie passed out on the bathroom floor.
"This is all I need." He muttered and picked Torrie up, carried her back to bed and set her down.
"V?" Her small voice checked him as he stood up away from her.
"Wha?" He asked her, getting to the end of his endurance for frustration.
"Am I gonna die? I feel so terrible. So cold." She was shivering.
"You're not gonna die." Vince sighed as he took off his shirt and crawled into bed with Torrie for the second stupid time in his life. He couldn't just leave her alone. She could be really sick, after all. She sounded so small, so helpless, so alone. She'd played him all night long and spending the night in his best friend's bed with his best friend's girl was the last thing he wanted to do. But he couldn't leave her to fend for herself. He thought, sanguinely, that he should really have his head examined.
He finally fell asleep after an hour of taciturn thought. Torrie woke him up three times as she rushed the bathroom. He helped her back to bed each time and fell back asleep with her. Around 5am Torrie fell deeply asleep and he heaved a sigh of relief, figuring she was going to be ok to sleep till they woke her up. He drifted back off himself, even though he'd planned on seeking his own bed once he'd realized Torrie was going to be ok.