Disclaimer: Dan's the genius behind Victorious and I'm the fan who writes mere "fiction" about it. Clearly, ownership is not on my end of the context.
A/N: I apologize in advance for any typos or grammatical errors that escaped my sight. The summer job thing has been hectic lately.
II
Somewhere in the Middle
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She is Scarlett
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This world is dynamic. Of course, unless you happen to exist in a void that not even the entirety that is the universe engulfs, then you can consider yourself stagnant without anyone trying to debate you about it—
'Achoo!'
Everything is bound to evolve and there are several circumstances to evolution. These circumstances can be categorized into many different things, but could probably be generalized as that contradiction that leads, pulls the strings behind the climax—
'ACHOO!'
All things – from miniscule to large-scale, from tangible to abstract – have their ambiguities to handle, and when these flaws are handled, comes development—
'AACHOO!'
Perhaps, all things – even a person's interaction with the other. Or an obnoxious disease.
'Oh, why?' Tori hisses as she blows her nose for about the hundredth time this day.
She caught a nasty cold three days after their first casting attempt. It wasn't a very productive attempt either. If there was one thing Tori gained from that ruckus, that would be seconds negative to the span of time she could stare into Jade West's eyes. Well, after Daphne's audition, the youngest Vega found herself unable to look into Jade's eyes without—um, actually she hasn't looked into them since.
Tori picked the dining table earlier as her headquarters for her homework and her silly attempts to recovering from the bug she caught. She isn't perfect like people, who don't really know her, think she is. Nope. She's not, which should probably be the reason why she insists on downing bowls of chicken soup instead of those fast-effect pills.
After another sip from the cup-sized bowl of the said soup, she instantly places her hands on her mouth, preparing for another sneeze coming on.
'You should—' Trina would have nagged the shit out of her sister in a single sentence but she was cut-off by another loud sneeze that must've rocked the younger Vega's entire body.
'Yeah?' Tori, in her croaky voice, asks, looking lazily up at her elder sister as she did.
'I said. You. Should—' and there was another sneeze.
Trina inhales sharply and freezes momentarily. She blinks a few times as she stares at her now Rudolph-nosed sister. Seeing that no sneeze came on, she opens her mouth to nag Tori.
But then, comes another sneeze.
Tori suddenly finds herself enjoying her predicament for the first time this day as she looks up at her sister with a goofy smirk. She laughs, still in her husky voice, and reaches for her supposed remedy to take another sip, when Trina places a hand on her sister's. The older Vega daughter brings both their hands back to the table rather harshly, making the small ceramic bowl clatter on the table.
'Lay off the soup!' Trina shouts.
'No!' Tori retorts, cupping the bowl with both hands protectively like it's the most precious thing in the world. 'It's my cure.' She adds with a small pout, looking at her sepia reflection on the liquid.
'Yeah, cure from wellness,' Trina says, rolling her eyes.
Tori twirls the cup a little, making the soup whip lightly. Her brow furrows briefly but immediately relaxes as she looks at the surface of the cure ripple. She sighs.
Something spoke to her – telling her that she's been bothered by ripples as well. These tiny little evidences of motion aren't like ocean waves that just seem to keep coming; they will stop at one point and wouldn't bother the calm surface until the cup would be shook again. She thought of the last time she felt calm, it wasn't anytime recent.
'We have a medicine cabinet, you know,' Trina reminds her, walking to the kitchen and opening the fridge for something to eat – or maybe apply on her face. 'You really should consider changing your practices before that turns into a cold.'
Tori looks up from the cup with an expression that bore an unripe realization. Maybe the cold managed to block her brain as well – apart from her sinuses, that is. She pulls out a tissue from the box in front of her and blows her nose, half-expecting this to help her grasp the idea in her head.
Well, it didn't. But it, at least, makes her realize her need to ask her sister about her previous statement.
'What was that you said Trina?'
Trina looks at her sister like she was just about the only person born stupid in this planet. She closes the fridge, after successfully pulling out sandwich ingredients, which Tori finally thought she'd eat – unless ham, cheese and lettuce had been discovered to tighten pores if slapped on the face.
'I said,' she began, 'go grab a flu-tablet before that turns nastier than it already is.'
The younger Vega narrows her eyes at her sister as if further analysis would be on her face. Then she smiles for two reasons: one, Trina actually made her realize something important – there might be a better approach to bugs other than the one you're used to; she just had to find the right bug to find the right cure. Her eyes fell on her Pear Phone for a second. Two, a sneeze was coming on and Trina will be pissed-off over the next thing she'd be doing.
'Come again?' Tori asks as innocently as she could.
Trina groans—growls—audibly, looks up from the sandwich she was preparing and opens her mouth to speak. 'I SAID—'
Then comes a sneeze – immediately followed by a fit of croaky laughter.
'TORIIIII!'
Maybe Jade West, from the passenger seat of Beck's car, heard Trina screaming the name of the person who had been bothering her to the end of her wits. Or maybe, Tori Vega might actually be the most disturbing thing in her mind right now.
Yeah. Not talking zombies, not the moving plastic babies, not the fly infested carcass of someone previously important. Just Tori Vega.
She sighs and grips her Pear Phone a little tighter than she should.
'Babe?'
Jade doesn't even look at Beck; she just stared straight ahead.
'We're here.' Beck says, sounding more concerned now.
'Yeah,' she says through a sigh. She pushes the door open and just before she could get out, her boyfriend holds her wrist.
'What's wrong?'
He looks at Jade, brows almost furrowing.
'Just a headache,' Jade lies. She was a pretty good liar.
Well. Until Tori Vega.
She finally steps out of the car, half-hoping the darkness of the West household's driveway would shadow how bothered she actually was.
'Okay,' Beck answers. 'If there is anything you want to talk about you can always call me.'
'Right,' Jade leans forward and kisses him lightly. 'Night, babe.'
Beck nods slightly and smiles at his girlfriend as she shuts the door close and waves him a goodbye.
As soon as Beck's car disappears from her driveway, her eyes immediately fell on the screen of her phone. If Pear Phones could ever feel SMS-less, she wouldn't be surprised to find the black communicating device in a corner in her room in the morning – not a bar; it's tragically underage since it's but a year old.
She walks toward their front door – probably slower than what boredom could ever allow her to. And when she finally touches the door knob, her phone's message alert tone went-off.
Jade West practically throws her purse and keys off as she fumbles to check who sent the message, almost dropping her phone in the process.
'Behind you.'
At the sight of The Hybrid above the two simple words inside the little round-cornered rectangle at the center of her phone, she brightens. She gathers the stuff she had dropped earlier with her free hand, while she used the other to construct a reply - all the while, fighting a grin that is obviously winning.
Before she could finish, another talk bubble appeared on the left side of her phone.
'Oops! Wrong person,' appeared – followed by that tiny yellow emoticon that stuck its tongue out.
She shook her head. That little smile is undeniable now.
Tori Vega never did this before; it was Jade West who usually sent the first message. Perhaps, this is why Jade West pockets her phone and suddenly decides that taking the back door would probably make her feel better.
Like Tori, she felt the need to try something different.
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Sometimes though, when you begin to think that you have just started to figure out one contradiction in your life, another would pop out of places and times you wish it wouldn't. And most of the time, these new contradictions bind more people than it seems to.
'What do you mean it's all finished?'
Cat Valentine has the attention span of a hamster. Nothing seems to bore her though; everything can either be very exciting or others – all succeeding the word "very".
Which is why, at the mall, she finds herself feeling all guilty that the dress she was supposed to buy had been bought out to the very last one. What is even more frustrating about the situation is that she had seen at least five of the same design in the SALE hamper earlier.
'But I just followed this kid with a really nice twirling shoe! And now it's all gone?'
She has this habit of rubbing at her fingers when she was feeling uneasy and right now, she was about to set her thumbs in flames.
The sales clerk looks at Cat weirdly from head to toe.
'So, this shoe,' she began, 'twirling, huh?'
'Well, yeah,' Cat responds, suddenly all smiley. 'It has this little top-like figure on the toe area and it twirled like a little swirly lollipop on a windmill!'
'Hm,' the sales clerk blinked a couple of times, convincing herself that Cat would go away if she blinked a little more. 'So, about the dress, delivery for the next batch would probably take another month and it wouldn't be on sale anymore.'
'Aw!' Cat is worried again in a matter of seconds and she went back to torturing her fingers.
She and Tori had seen that dress the other day and the half-Latina swore to return for it when she had enough money. She kept talking about it the entire night that followed, kept saying that it would be the perfect costume for the lead character. She was supposed to grab the dress herself this day, but she couldn't because of that nasty cold that Cat decided to name Scarlett.
Because of a shoe with twirling top-like swirly lollipops, Cat couldn't fulfill the favor she promised to do.
Tori, who was having this literally shaky relationship with Scarlett, isn't going to be very happy.
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Plans can be very upsetting sometimes – especially if none of them fall into place or, if they do, just in wrong places.
Just like how somebody plans to finally be consistent with her attempt to abolish that awkward space between her and someone – but that "someone" practically storms into the hall with a panicked redhead tailing her.
'But Tori!'
Jade immediately opens her locker door and hides her face behind it despite all the scissors dangling on it exposing who she actually is.
Cat and Tori stop a few feet across the hall from where the West girl stood.
'Cat! Please, I just don't want to talk about it anymore!' Tori says with her voice still husky. She had both hands covering her ears as she walked down the hall.
Jade looks around her locker for something to grab and pretend to be busying herself with, but all she had in front of her were black books and scissors. She growls to herself and pulls out her black Gardener's Shears and the text book on top of the stack of her school references.
'But Tori! I will make it up to you! I promise!'
Jade finds herself leaning towards the two girls' direction. It wasn't normal for them to bicker, but just what the heck does "make it up to you" means? She lifts the edge of the textbook she grabbed between the shears as she listened.
'Look, I was fine,' Tori began, raising a hand, looking momentarily calm. 'Until, two nights ago, you offered yourself—'
Now, Jade's hand fidgets, applying a little more pressure than intended on the shear handle, making her cut through the entire cover of the book.
'—and I accepted! What was I even thinking?' Tori continues, sounding ever so frustrated now.
Jade's eyes narrows, looking both frustrated and confused now. She tugs at about half the pages of the book rather harshly and places them between the shears.
'I really didn't mean to do this to you!' Cat whimpers. 'I just got distracted and then the next thing I know, your dress was gone!'
Jade almost chokes the air she just breathed in. Her grip on both book and scissors tighten, shredding even more of her Improvisation Text.
'Yes,' Tori says matter-of-factly. 'while you busied yourself with twirly-boot boy, I was at home, waiting for you, and.. Ugh! Dressless!'
That should have been the quota. The shears had slipped out of Jade's hand and it fell to the floor, making an audible clank.
Tori and Cat both turn their attention to the source of the sound. Jade freezes. She looks around for an excuse that might just be in her locker. To her fortune, the two girls that had been causing her torture for the last five minutes shrug the noise off.
'Listen, Cat,' Tori sighs, holding out a hand – an attempt to calm both Cat and herself. 'Okay, we can fix this sometime. Just, not now, okay?'
Cat doesn't answer. She stared directly at Tori with her lower lip slightly pouting. The youngest Vega, being herself, sighs one more time to rid her mind of her annoyance. She forces a smile at the redhead.
'I'm sorry,' Tori began, 'you went through enough already. I'll make it up to you at lunch time, alright? Ice cream?'
'Yay!' Cat suddenly tucks her pout in and practically squeezed the daylights out of Tori. 'I love you, Tori!'
Tori laughs and hugs the redhead back.
Behind her locker door, Jade is almost successful with drowning out the usual noise of Hollywood Arts hall, her brow furrows. She was almost immobile after her shears fell to the floor. What to do?
She pulls out her phone from her purse, taps on Messages, and just stares—not read—at the speech bubbles on Tori's side of the conversation they had last night. It comprised of bickering and getting on the other's nerves but it made her look forward to school today.
She scrolls randomly at different parts of the conversation and ends up shoving her phone into her locker. She slams it close, huffing in the process.
'Careful there, Big Bad Jade,' says an all too familiar voice – only it's a little croaky at the moment. 'You don't want to blow your locker down.'
Jade doesn't scowl, groan, growl or does any of the usual reactions she used to offer the other girl. She just turns to stare back at the half-Latina, her brow almost drawing. The tanner girl picks up the nearly forgotten shears and hands it over to its owner.
Jade takes it, maintaining her blank expression. Tori looks back at her like she is being unusual.
'What's wrong?' she asks with a grin.
'Nothing.' Jade answers flatly, looking away.
'Well,' Tori shrugs, sounding almost disappointed. She looks down at the floor for a second before breathing in and forcing out a smile. 'Later then?'
Jade nods. Tori, feeling rather stupid now, walks past the paler girl.
As soon as the youngest Vega was past her shoulder, Jade quickly opens her locker and retrieves her phone. She runs her hand on the surface of the screen, searching for any cracks or chips.
Never had she cared for her cellphone, just now.
She taps on Messages and a sigh of relief escapes her lips upon seeing Tori's messages safe, undamaged, there.
Contradictions, huh. Plans should be equally persistent if one happened to be Jade West.
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She really didn't want any more room for the spookiness she heard earlier. Certainly, this should be reason enough for Jade to find herself ringing the bell of the Vega household, by herself.
'Coming!'
Hearing how that response sounded more muffled than usual, that would most definitely be Tori running up to grab the door.
Jade breathes in just as the door opens.
Tori, hair tied in a messy pony tail, clad in an awfully loose black sweatshirt that read LAPD in huge yellow print, pajamas and furry bedroom slippers, stood there, looking rather confused after her momentary surprise.
'Jade,' she runs a hand over her face. 'It's—it's late.'
'I know,' Jade answers flatly, as usual. 'I'm getting in.'
Tori shrugs her shoulders and steps back to let Jade in.
Jade walks in and almost automatically plops on the couch.
'So,' Tori began, 'why are you here again?'
'To help you,' Jade replies, searching for the remote at the same time. As soon as she found it, she turns the television on, not minding how the audio practically blared across the supposedly quiet living room.
'Help me?' Tori raises both eyebrows, 'you practically ignore me at school and now you want to help me? Okay, what's up, Jade?'
She doesn't answer, just flips through the channels.
Tori sighs and walks to the stairs. 'I'll go get my stuff.'
'About Cat—'
Tori stops at the foot of the stairs and turns to Jade. She had not turned from facing the television. The shorter girl could only see the back of the other's furtively distracted head.
'What about her?'
Now, Jade turns, looking Tori straight in the eye without any intention of turning away for the first time this day. She shrugs her shoulders, trying to appear nonchalant about the issue she decided to ask about.
'What's up with you two?' Jade asks.
Tori furrows her brow, thinking how weird this suddenly seemed.
'You know, earlier at school?'
'Oh,' Tori smiles, feeling silly. 'That. You heard that too? She's really such a kid, isn't she?'
Kid.
Jade would have mocked Tori with her Tori Voice right this moment because of the weird choice of terms, but then the thought that maybe she isn't on the same context as the half-Latina is, she held her tongue back. And blinks.
'It's silly really. She offered to get this dress that I really liked for Skye's character, but she got all distracted by these weird shoes that had twirling tops on the toes—'
Jade's hand goes to her forehead with a clear slap, making Tori stop mid-sentence.
'Uh, am I missing something?' Tori asks, her hands moving around in outward waving motions like it would help her find the right words.
'No, but I guess I did. This is embarrassing.' Jade says, drowning out the last sentence so Tori wouldn't hear.
Silence.
Tori shifts her weight from one foot to the other.
'Um, so I'll go get my stuff so we can work here.'
Just as Tori's foot touched the first step, Jade shuts the television off, making her stop yet again.
'No—'
'No?' Tori asks, confused.
'I'll go with you.'
With this, Jade stands up and strides towards and up the stairs – even walking past a silenced Tori. Well, she does know where the youngest Vega's room is.
'Wait—' Tori grabs Jade by the wrist.
She looks around, head tilted down a little, searching for the right words, the right excuse, but she couldn't. Perhaps, she doesn't even know what she wanted in the first place.
'What?'
Jade didn't sound annoyed. Most of the time, "what" is a snap or a hiss. But she sounded calm and collected, just simply asking.
'I'm sick,' is what Tori mustered as a response. 'I don't want you catching the virus.'
Jade remained silent, staring.
'I mean. It should be all over my room.'
'Cool.'
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Tori should have understood that "cool" was really just a closing remark of some sort. Meaning, Jade was able to comprehend but it didn't mean she considered the suggestion.
That's why, after about a couple of hours, they are still at it – listing the needed equipment and going through the script page-by-page in order to pin every needed prop and costume. It was actually a nice thing to work with Jade; she always seemed to know what she was doing.
They were both seated on Tori's bed, a pile of papers, pens and markers separating them.
'One second,' Tori raises a hand to Jade, excusing herself from their current task.
She reaches for the tissue box and pulls out about three before blowing her nose in them. She must've done it a little graceless that Jade finally found that scowl she hadn't wore for this night yet. But really, it's just the mere presence of Scarlett that annoyed her – Tori's constant excusing and sneezing; it disrupted the flow of the work their doing.
'Don't you take flu-tabs?'
'Ugh, I hate flu meds. I find the drowse very repulsive.'
Jade raises her brow at Tori's use of hate and repulsive. Maybe Scarlett is some sort of bitch in Cold land – and an ultimate bitch at that, polluting Tori like this.
'It's a cold, Vega. Flu meds are supposed to address the issue.'
There are flu meds that prevent drowse nowadays.
But this fact isn't the reason why both girls suddenly fall silent. They didn't realize they skipped out on the above medical information just yet. They quiet down at two separate realizations.
Tori, from that moment at the stairs, knew she couldn't figure her issues with her interaction with Jade just yet – because, unlike her flu and the flu meds, she couldn't even point out what needed to be fixed.
She had initially thought that all these contradictions have stacked up. But at least, from tonight's events, she figured that there simply exists one solid ambiguity that complicated about everything else.
She licks her lips and looks down at the homework-related stuff distancing Jade from her. She had placed them there, on purpose. Jade's behavior tonight just isn't helping.
Jade, on the other hand, is more of the type to jump in if she is curious enough about something. Maybe she thinks faster than Tori, but at this point of the night, she is seriously considering a flu-med that could knock her to sleep in an instant – maybe because of that feeling that nearly pushed her to knock the materials between them away.
She brings her hand to the script page closest to her and Tori nearly backs away at this gesture but chose not to – because if she did, she'd be on the floor...hurt.
'Uh,' Tori sets the pen she was holding down and smiles awkwardly. 'We don't have school tomorrow but I'm tired.'
Jade shrugs. She merely stretches her legs and lies down on her side of the bed to Tori's dismay.
'Ah, right. You're the guest.' Tori says as she snaps her fingers, trying her best to appear cool about this. She takes one pillow and drops it on the floor. 'I'll take the floor then.'
And she was the one with the cold.
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A/N: So I meant to finish this earlier, but the amount of work I have wouldn't let me. But because of my love for what I do, Jori and all my readers and reviewers, I tried my very best so I could make you happy with this. I hope you'd be.
DramaHunny101 Thank you, you are even more awesome for reviewing and reading most of all. I'm glad you loved it, but please don't die, you won't be able to see how Jori would come about. Haha.
KMACMUZIKMAFIA or AQUARIUS121
Ahaha. I won't tell but one day you'd find yourself screaming at the awesomeness that is JORI! Haha. Many thanks!
xXLordOfInglipsXx
Thank you so much! I'm glad you thought it was worth calling beautiful.
elfspirit7
Hehe. Hi. I updated. Just not sooner. Please don't hate me!
TCeeDub
And you, my dear, made my heart smile (not in the weird way too). Thanks so much! I'm glad to see your name here. It genuinely made me happy.
AlphaTeam101
Ahaha! I actually checked the video online because I am quite familiar with the song, just not the video. Oh and yeah, I do hate how all these responsibilities traffic my fanfiction life. Haha. Thanks again Alpha! OO,
fruitloopsmademegay
Hmm. You know what? It would be really awesome if a Jori-er would get to write for the show. You know, go under cover. Whoever that person is, would have my dream job. But anyway, I thank you dearly and I am really, really happy that you "get" what I try to portray, it's very flattering really.
Dani2606
I put a little more stuff that I hope you'd equally like. Thank you so much dear. I try to play between vague and specific. Ugh. Hard to describe but I'm really happy that you grasp several ideas that I throw in. I'm really glad that you are among those that read my work.
professor lazyass
Oh my God. You are THE professor lazyass. I'm a fan. I have read and reviewed your work. Although I used a different alias. Hehe. If you get curious just ask me, but I'll have to send my answer in PM. Really, I'm a huge, HUGE fan and a review coming from you made me truly, truly happy and even more inspired to do better. I will try my best to be able to establish this story.
"_"
Thanks so much! I hope you like this chapter as much.
BrainLapse
Wow. You had me reach for that spot at the back of my head that feels tingly when I'm suddenly all shy. Really, it sounds weird but I do that in real life. Thanks so much for the awesome review. I hope I didn't disappoint you with this chapter.
Project Heeee
haha, dear, it wasn't weird at all. Like I said before, no matter how you write it, as long as the review is from your heart, you'll make me very happy. But seriously, having you read this is soooo much happiness for me already.
bandgrad2008
I'm glad that you love it. But I do hope I keep up with your expectations. I love what I do but I love it more when Jori lovers, such as yourself, love my work.
Black-Love-With-M.M
Thank you dear! I hope you loved this too.
ChaseLehrman
Thank you dear. And about the "tease", it's something I love about Jori but like I said in the first chapter, I will try to develop these two's relationship – as plausible as I could. Again, thank you for appreciating my work.
MusicNinja1010
That is so true. They are just so irresistible, aren't they? And again, I agree, there should be more Jori fics! Thanks for reading and reviewing dear.