AN: Over a hundred reviews?! You guys are amazing!
Thank you so much for the birthday wishes! You're all so sweet!
While my thoughts are still lucid, in honor of Victorious final episode,
I have updated sooner than I had planned.
Hope you enjoy!
"How many tickets have you sold so far?" The red head asked in a chirpy mood. She stood over the ticket booth before the brunette with a huge smile
"Two hundred and fifty," Tori grinned proudly.
She finished writing down the said number in one of clipboards before looking up at the smaller woman. It was the third day since the ball tickets had been on sale. For three days straight, after she was done with all her classes, Tori would join the rest of the committee in front of the student union building to help promote and sell the tickets. She was in charge of keeping count on how many tickets had been sold and so far Tori was more than pleased with the results. Two other members had taken the responsibility of selling the decorated masks on a table a little farther from the ticket booth, though Tori had been secretly displeased, she hesitantly allowed the rest of the committee to move around to announce the ball and promote the selling of the masks.
"Got to get to class! Bye Tori! Bye Jade!" the red head waved skipping off to class.
Tori laughed as the red head took off running. The woman never learned. She was always on the clock.
"Hey Jade," Tori smiled when the pale woman made her way to the booth. She looked down noticing the mask in the woman's hand, a proud smile playing her lips. "You're going to the ball?" she asked curiously.
Jade smirked. She debated whether or not she should take the opportunity to tease the brunette. She always found amusing how easily the brunette could get worked up. Deciding to be playful on the topic she quirked her brows, her lips curling in a bantering way. "There's a ball going on? And here I thought I could just add this to my collection of horrifying objects," she smirked.
Tori rolled her eyes. "You know I wouldn't be too surprised to find out you actually had such a collection." She recalled all the horror movies they had seen along with the red head and how Jade always seemed to be amused by the gore in them. Cat usually wound up crying and while Tori seemed to strangely grow fond of them.
"Do you have the scissor props from the Scissoring?" Tori asked with a coy smile.
Jade's grin widened. "Of course I do. That is my favorite movie. I could probably rehearse you the entire script without missing a single beat," she grinned with a glint of mischief in her blue eyes.
Tori chuckled. "I don't doubt it. Now could you quit blocking the view of the booth so people can actually buy tickets," she playfully hit the raven haired woman the tip of her pen on the arm earning a laugh for the said woman.
"Fine maybe I won't buy my ticket from you."
That stopped Tori's laughing. She eyed the woman for a moment, trying to figure out whether or not Jade actually meant it. "You want to buy a ticket?"
Jade raised a perfectly trimmed brow, an amused smirk playing at her lips. "Why does that surprise you, Vega? Don't think I can go to masquerade balls?" she teased.
The brunette grew furiously red as she tried not to imagine Jade dressed so elegantly for the ball. Surely the woman looked breathtaking in anything she wore, but a corseted dress? That…she…Tori couldn't form a single thought let alone a sentence. Her mouth opened and closed making her look like a fish as she tried to come up with at least one complete sentence. "I…Uh…well…."
Jade chuckled at the woman's discomfort. The rosy cheeks definitely suited her, she thought. Brushing back the thought, Jade pursed her lips into a smirk. "I'm teasing, Vega. Calm down. Now can I please have one ticket?"
Tori nodded and handed her a tan piece of paper. As Jade began to give her the bill Tori shook her head. "It's on me," she smiled. "Are you coming over to the apartment later? They're playing the Scissoring at seven." Tori added before Jade could protest.
Jade huffed biting back the remark when Tori smoothly changed the topic. The woman was clever, she knew Jade loved that movie. Grinning in amusement Jade replied, "I wouldn't miss it for the world, Vega."
Tori blushed. She played with the stack of tickets. "Cat has to work tonight. You don't have to come over if you don't want to," she said avoiding the woman's gaze. The soft chuckle from the taller woman raised Tori's attention.
"Vega, it's the Scissoring. I can't miss that opportunity," Jade said as if were the most obvious thing in the world.
The brunette rolled her eyes. Jade owned the movie, special collector's edition to be correct. Jade always bragged about it whenever the movie played on the television, but Tori decided it was best to let the case rest. She wouldn't mind having some company over later. She was done with all her assignments and had accumulated so many vacation hours at her job, she had nothing but free time. What better choice than to spend it with a beautiful blue eyed woman who was willing to spend the rest of the night in her company?
…
Evening rolled around pretty soon. The red head had long gone off to work, leaving the brunette to mope in her spare time. When the knocking at the door finally released her from her boredom, Tori gladly made her way to the front door to greet the all too knowingly smirking woman.
"Took you long enough, Vega," Jade smirked when the door swung open. She eyed the woman's casual sleeping ware in amusement. By the looks of it, Tori looked more than relieved to see her and the look alone sent a tingling feeling down to Jade's stomach. She was growing used to the feeling. Really used to it.
Tori was about to reply with a playful remark when her phone went off. A small grin grew across her lips at the sight of her mother's name. "I need to take this call. You'll get the food?" Tori asked with a sweet smile.
Jade nodded quickly as Tori answered her phone and made her way into her room to take her call.
"Vega, I'll be back soon," she called from the doorway, before Tori had a chance to answer the front door clicked shut leaving the brunette alone in the apartment with her call.
Twenty minutes later, Jade had returned with a large cheese pizza and two ice teas. Jade was surprised to find the apartment dead quiet. It wasn't an abnormal mood in the small home, but it was oddly too quiet. The cheery brunette was nowhere to be found as Jade made her way into the living room. She set the warm pizza and two drinks on the small coffee table, blue eyes darting around the room in search of the missing woman.
Before she knew it, Jade was standing in front of the brunette's bedroom door, her hand resting over the wood. No sound was heard from the other side, but Jade knew better. She carefully opened the door and released a grief-stricken sigh when her assumptions of the brunette's whereabouts were confirmed. She'd really hoped Tori would be either in the kitchen or even the bathroom. The sight she was met with broke her heart just like it had done so every time she'd found her in the exact spot.
Tori was curled up on her bed facing away from the door, her back turned to the pale woman. The auburn locks covered her face, but Jade knew without a doubt those brown eyes that had earlier been so bright and playful now only reflected hurt and were full of tears.
Quietly she walked around and over to lie beside the silently crying brunette. Tori's body grew stiff when a long warm arm reached over and nudged her shoulder so she could lie on her back. When the blue eyes met brown, the wood colored irises grew watery once more. Jade's lips curled in dismay. Her arm curled around the smaller woman's back. Pulling the woman into her body she wrapped one arm underneath the small waist of the brunette's as her free hand reached up to caress the auburn locks. Tori buried her face in pale neck, her sobs slowly calming as Jade held her and gently hummed into her hair.
Many times Jade had been present when Tori had announced she'd be speaking to her parents and during those countless times a long period of time had passed before the brunette made herself present again to the other two women. Her usual brown eyes always appeared to be tired and glassy when she rejoined. In those moments Jade always had to bite her tongue to keep from asking the woman if she was alright. She knew the answer, she wasn't. Jade wanted to take her in her arms and hold her, whispered comforting words to her, but with the red head in the room it always went undone. The three usually remained quiet until Tori would rise and claim she was going to call it a night. It hurt Jade. It hurt her to see such sadness in the brown eyes as they turned away and walked into the dark hallway.
On the rare occasions that Tori did not return from her room, Jade often felt a nauseating turn in the pit of her stomach as she imagined the brunette alone in her room quietly crying. Those nights she would leave early with the excuse of either a project due the following day or having to go in early for work despite the bubbly red head's pouting and protesting. As soon as she was gone from the apartment, she'd call the brunette, who would not speak but just listen through the phone as Jade whispered sweet and soothing words. Jade would stay on the line softly speaking, with the faint sounds of sniffling coming from the quiet brunette as a response, until she was sure the woman had fallen asleep.
The faint sound of crying eventually ended, leaving only the sound of the two women's breathing. Long pale fingers brushed back the scattered brown locks over the flushed cheeks. Jade angled her head to the side just far enough to get a good view of the resting brunette. It frustrated the woman beyond belief when it came down to the tan woman. There was absolutely nothing she could do to change the situation for Tori. Jade knew how much Tori hated being weak, but it was all the brunette could take when it involved her ill mother.
The woman always put a strong face when it came to the rest of the world, when it came to Cat, but Jade saw beyond it. She could see it every time Cat randomly asked Tori about her parents, the way her jaw set and her hands began to shake. Tori had yet to tell her red headed friend about her mother.
A small smile formed on Jade's lips. Tori looked to peaceful in her slumber. She gently caressed the caramel cheek beneath her thumb. Unconsciously she leaned down and pressed her lips only inches away from the brunette's at the corner of her mouth. Tori let out a soft hum, moving closer to the pale woman.
"You can't keep doing this to yourself, Tori," Jade whispered sadly as she continued to stroke the cheek.
"I know," was the tired response as the woman stirred beneath her.
Jade's hand ceased all movement at once. She raised a brow in surprise, lifting her head to look down at the awake brunette. Her hand remained over the cheek as brown eyes looked up at her.
"I can't keep doing this. It's…it's," Tori sighed trying to form the right words. How could she respond to the woman who was currently holding her in attempt to mend her broken state? Was there anything she could really say to her for all the things she had done? "Thank you," she finally decided. That summed it all. She really did owe Jade so much. It seemed liked the woman always knew when she needed her most.
Jade gave no response. Instead she moved the hand that had previously rested across the woman's cheek and trailed it down the long tan arm and down to where their hands could meet. The fluttering feeling her stomach returned as their hands intertwined, neither woman saying a word. Tori moved in closer to the woman who happily obliged by tightening her hold around her as blue eyes contently admired their linked hands.
It wasn't about Tori's mother or Jade's confused state in that moment. All sadness, all concern had long left through the window. It was about how right it felt. How it felt like the most natural thing in the world. How right it felt for Tori to be in Jade's arms. How right it felt for Jade to hold Tori. How right it felt to hold hands without a care in mind.
As they lay in the quite bedroom of the small apartment holding each other, not saying a single word with the comfort of silence to indulge them, both women were slowly growing to understand that what was growing between them was beyond any friendship. It was beyond a shoulder to cry on.
It was farther and more than that. It had gone to a place where there was no return. A place both women feared, a place where one of them would only end with a broken heart. A place either one was yet to accept. I the back of both their minds the single most haunting word burned in the back of their minds. Love. The place they feared the most, the place they could no longer return from. They were in love. They were afraid to admit, but deep down they both knew they were falling in love.
AN: I can't believe I cried. I actually cried. Before, during, and after. It's really over )':
Alright my fellow readers! It's time to kick this story up a notch!
The next chapter should turn things around and make things….interesting. ;]
The ball is coming up! Yay! Who knows what great things can occur at a ball! *smirks*
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