Disclaimer: The show Victorious, its characters and other associated copyrights are property of someone else and not me.
Shock Value
Chapter 13 – Mean
No One's POV
Note: Spoilers for the 1961 movie Psycho are in this chapter.
Tori was ecstatic as she entered her home, as her first date with Jade had gone beyond well. She knew in her heart that Jade was beginning to fall in love with her. Just the thought of it made Tori squeal with delight, much to the annoyance of her sister trying to study in the next room.
"Jade's going to love me, Jade's going to love me." An ultra giddy Tori squealed, as she danced around the room.
Abruptly her door flew open. "Tori, I'm really happy for you, but you've been running around all night like a hyper 5 year old jacked up on candy.
Tori abruptly stopped dancing and turned red. "Oh…sorry."
Trina leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms. "I take it, the date went well."
Tori excitedly ran up to Trina. "Oh my god, it went so well. We swam, and talked, and kissed, and ate dinner and kissed."
"Trina laughed. "Ok, OK, I get it. Try to be cool, you start picking out china patterns now, you'll scare her off. You need to remember this is new territory for her."
"Yeah Trina, you're the epitome of cool. Once you sink your hooks in some guy he…"
"You do it your way, I'll do it mine." Trina said poking a finger into Tori's chest. "But you need to play it cool with Jade. That I'm sure of."
"You're right Trina." Tori said as she seemed to sober up a bit.
"Look, I actually need to do some studying, so just try to keep it down a bit."
Tori nodded. "Sure sis."
As Trina walked down the hallway she could hear her sister say to herself "Mrs Tori West"
Trina just slapped her head in disbelief and laughed.
Tori went to sleep that night, about has happy as could be. She kept thinking about their future life together and all the things that came with it. Jade, the woman she was madly in love with was seeing her. It was too much to be true.
During her sleep she dreamt about Jade.
It started off like a perfect dream, Tori was in a huge church. It was decorated with flowers all the normal trappings of a wedding. Her family and friends were there; it was perfect.
Jade was at her side, in front of the minister. She looked utterly beautiful in her long white wedding dress. Her heart beat with Joy, for this was the happiest day of her life.
The minister looked at her and said. "Do you Victoria Esmerelda Vega Take Jade west to be your lawfully wedded wife, until death do you part?"
"I do" Tori couldn't say it fast enough.
He then turned to Jade. "Do you Jadelyn Angela West, take Tori Vega to be your lawfully wedded wife until death to you part?"
Jade opened her mouth to speak but nothing, no sound came out. She quickly appeared to panic as she put her hand to her throat but still no sound came out.
All of a sudden the scene changed. She was still in the church, in her wedding gown. But now it was night, the church was dark, the pews were empty, flowers wilted, the decorations torn and faded.
Tori was all alone.
"Jade?" she called out. Only the sound of her cavernous echo was the response.
"Jade?" She said louder. The church was quiet, except for the distant sound of laughter. It sounded very much like a party in progress, somewhere off in the distance. Tori could faintly make out the voices, of Robbie, Cat and Andre.
"We have everything we need for the martini's, except gin" Said Beck.
Finally Tori heard Jade's happy voice. "I have that." Tori looked down to see the flowers in her bouquet seemed to wither and die right in her hand.
Tori began to panic and ran to the door as the church itself began to crumble around her.
"JADE!" Tori yelled as she suddenly snapped awake. Tori realized she was in her room, it was 3:14 in the morning and she was covered in a cold sweat.
Tori got out of bed, her hands were shaking. She went downstairs to get a drink of water. There she sat down, turned on the TV and tried to shake off the nightmare. Sadly, the only think on, that wasn't an infomercial, was an ancient rerun of Green Acres. Tori kept watching regardless.
"I'm going to have this stupid theme song stuck in my head, all dam day" Tori mumbled to herself.
"What was that? Tori, why are you up?" Said her mom's voice behind her.
Tori turned around. "Oh..Sorry. I had a nightmare and I needed to get my mind off it. I thought I would watch tv for a bit.
Holly Vega sat down next to Tori. "What was it about?"
Tori closed her eyes for a moment and pushed back her hair. "I dreamt about Jade. The thing is that our date went great. But I dreamt that I was getting married to her. But then she was gone and the church was empty. I could hear everyone else at a party, but I wasn't there. I was so scared that Jade was gone."
Tori's mom put her hand around her shoulder. "I'm sorry honey."
Just the thought of it was depressing to Tori. "What does it mean mom?"
"It means that you are scared that this relationship will not come to a marriage. But don't think about marriage, think about today. Making the most of today. If you worry too much about tomorrow that you miss today. You're date went well, Jade likes you that's great but don't get too ahead of yourself. This is Jade's first female relationship so you need to be careful. You can make it, but enjoy the present." Holly Vega said in her most reassuring voice.
Tori, turned off the TV and gave her mom a hug. "Thanks. I think maybe I'll dream about what we'll do on Monday night instead."
Tori slept better the rest of the night and woke up refreshed the next morning. Upon waking up she quickly pushed the memories of the nightmare out of her head. Tori spend the day studying and doing chores around the house. She didn't see Jade on that given Sunday and only spoke to her for a few minutes. Jade was working on a project she had due for her scriptwriting class on Monday, so she was busy with that. Though in the few minutes they did speak, they made plans to go to the movies the next night. But they hadn't decided on the movie.
The next day was Monday. Tori as she walked into the school, found herself nervous. Some part of her half expected Jade to be back to her usual snarky mean self. As if the events of the party and the date never happened.
As Tori took the first steps into the school, she felt a tightness in her chest. A dull sense of fear and abandonment that reminded her of the empty church in her nightmare, sat in her stomach. She made a glance to Jade's locker, but Jade wasn't there. Her absence only made that fear a bit more real.
Suddenly Tori heard Cat's voice come from somewhere behind her. "TORI!"
Tori spun round to she the perky red haired girl run up to her. Cat looked rather excited. "How was your date? Is she your girlfriend now? Did you two, do the nasty? Did do go do..."
"CAT!" Boomed Jade's voice, which caused her to scream.
Jade walked up to Cat and shot her a nasty glare. If looks could kill, Cat could be most certainly dead at this point. "Our date was very nice, we're only dating and it's none of your fucking business. You got your answers, now go play in traffic or something."
Cat's eyes opened wide in fear. "But you shouldn't play in traffic, you could get hit."
Jade visibly tensed up. "5…4…3…"
By two, Cat was fleeing in terror down the hallway.
Jade stood there for a moment, taking a sip of her coffee as she watched Cat run away.
"Did you need to frighten her away?" Tori said with her hands on her hips and a slightly disappointed look on her face.
"No, but I wanted to. Nosy little pest." Jade said as she turned her attention to Tori.
"You shouldn't be so mean to Cat, she was only trying to find out what happened. Ok she went a bit overboard, but that's Cat."
Jade smirked and leaned in close to Tori, "Would you rather have me be mean to you? That can be arranged. I have several nasty insults and rude comments all warmed up and ready to go."
Tori nervously bit her lip. "Umm….No."
Jade gave Tori a quick kiss and took her hand, "Very good. Now walk me to class before I change my mind."
The rest of the day went well. Both girls noticed that Beck kept his distance. He looked angry and brooding the entire day. More than once Tori, felt his angry glare from across the class room. Jade just shot him a look that said. "If you so much as speak to her, I'll kill you."
As they both sat down to lunch Tori asked. "So what movie do you want to see tonight?"
Jade stabbed her salad with her fork. "If your game, they are playing Hitchcock's Psycho at the Imperial Palace theatre. They always run an old movie on Monday nights. I saw the Maltese Falcon a few weeks ago. Unless Psycho is too scary for you."
Tori smiled and took a drink of her soda. "Sounds fun. I've never seen that movie. I did hear it was supposed to be super scary or something." Though as she said it, her tone of voice indicated she was not convinced of that fact.
"What, you don't think an old movie can be scary?"
Tori laughed. "Come on, it's 50 years old, it's not even in color, none of those old movies are scary. I saw the original Frankenstein and it was about as scary as spongebob.. I like watching bad old movies."
"Ok, I'll pick you up at 6:30:" Jade said with a silent chuckle.
The rest of the day was uneventful, save for the occasional glare from Beck. He was obviously not happy about how things turned out.
At 6:30 Jade was knocking on Tori's door. The door suddenly flew open and Tori rushed out. She was holding a piece of paper and was very excited.
Tori grabbed Jade and gave her a huge hug. "Oh my god Jade, this is so great?"
Jade was confused. "I'm happy for you but what's great?"
Tori released Jade and handed her this paper. "I tried out for that singing talent show, Instant Star a few weeks ago. I didn't even think I would make it."
"I don't recall you doing that." Jade said as Tori handed her the paper.
"Oh yeah, I told you. You said that a trained monkey on crack would have a better chance of winning than me. Then you proceeded to mock me for the rest of the week about it."
Jade immediately blushed. "Oh..I remember that now. Er..Um..Sorry."
"I got into the semi finals. 3 people from LA will go to New York for the big finals. Winner gets a recording contract. Even the loser's get to tour around the country, as part of the Instant star tour."
"Holy Cow. That's great. When are the semi finals."
Tori pointed to the bottom of the sheet. "They are in two weeks, a panel of 5 judges will hear each one and decide on which ones to send to New York. There are 12 of us in the semi finals."
Jade took Tori's hand. "Ok, you probably can beat the trained monkey and all the other contestants too. Come on well see our movie and celebrate with a late night snack after."
Tori shoved the paper in her purse and got in the car with Jade. "OK, let's see your scary movie."
Jade just smirked. Even she considered Psycho to be one of the best horror/suspense movies of all time. It was almost as good as the scissoring, in her opinion.
They got to the theatre. It was one of those old movie palaces that was built in the golden days of cinema. It even had an organ from when silent movies used to play there. The lobby was ornate and beautifully decorated, with an oriental theme. Statues of Chinese dragons and pictures of the great wall of china and other sites were about the lobby.
Popcorn in hand they sat down in the balcony and held hands as the movie started. Jade watched as Tori slowly got into the movie.
"Ok, she stole the money, that's not scary. Is this like a movie where someone tries to steal it back?" Tori asked as Marion Crane, the main character, left the city in the movie.
Jade just smiled and kissed Tori on the cheek. "Just watch."
A little later Tori chimed in again. "I'll bet Norman steals the money so he can get away from his mother. It's still not scary."
Jade's smirk only widened. "Just watch.
A short while later in the movie, Marion got ready to take her shower. In the darkness Jade grinned and carefully watched Tori.
"I'll bet he takes the money while she's in the shower." Tori said.
Jade said nothing but continued to watch Tori, almost with glee. "You want scary Vega, just watch." Jade thought.
Then it came, the infamous shower scene. Just as the shower curtain was pulled aside and the knife raised in the air, Tori let out a blood curdling scream.
"AHHHHH…..Oh my god, she's killing her."
Jade couldn't help but laugh as Tori's eyes opened wide with terror, as Marion Crane was stabbed repeatedly in the shower. An instant later, Tori's face was buried in her arm.
"It's terrible, I can't watch." Said Tori, almost in tears.
Jade laughed. "I thought old movies weren't scary. Is little Tori all scared." Jade said in a mocking voice.
"You're mean." Tori protested tearfully.
A huge smirk formed on Jade's blood red lips. "Now you figure that out. Aren't you bright."
Tori just punched Jade in the arm and cuddled closer. "I'll bet Mrs. Bates ends up killing Norman too." Tori said a few moments later.
Jade had to contain her glee for the nice surprise Tori was going to get.
At this point, Tori was fully engrossed in the movie. Not to mention holding on to Jade's arm for dear life.
When the detective was stabbed to death, Tori screamed again. Much to Jade's delight.
Finally the climax came. Tori was practically on the edge of her seat as Lila Crane, Marion's sister, crept into the basement. There sitting with her back to Lila, Mrs. Bates, sat quietly in a chair.
"Mrs. Bates." Said the character on screen as she tapped Mrs. Bates on the shoulder.
Jade watched Tori intently. "She'll never make snap judgments about old movies again." Jade thought evilly to herself.
Slowly on the movie screen, the chair on which Mrs. Bates swung around to reveal a mummified corpse.
Tori's jaw suddenly dropped as her face froze into one of utter horror.
When Norman came in dressed as his mother, Tori began to scream again. It was a loud piercing scream that echoed through the entire theatre. Jade was laughing hysterically, the entire time.
"Stop laughing." Cried, an upset Tori.
After a few moments, Jade restrained herself and stopped laughing and threw her arm protectively around Tori. Though she looked rather mad, the Latina didn't protest.
"I still think your mean." Muttered Tori, as she nuzzled closer to Jade.
Jade smiled and kissed Tori on the forehead. "So can old movies be scary Tori?"
"Yes" Tori said softly.
"Ok, I had my quota of mean for the day. How about I buy you a nice late dinner and we celebrate your going to semi finals."
Tori looked at Jade and smiled. "Yes."
If you haven't seen psycho, see it. It is an excellent movie. Puts some of these modern day slasher movies to shame.
I'm glad, everyone is liking my other story. "The wolf in me." The next chapter will be up soon.