Robbie's Song

Welcome to the second chapter! I've been trying to prewrite chapters, and I only have one more after this, but I figure I might update now and see where it gets me. This still doesn't have Cabbie, but it does have Tandre friendship and I hope I got the dynamic right. Enjoy!

Chapter Two:

The discordant sound of piano keys being banged down in frustration rang out into the Vega living room, waking one of the residents.

Tori came down to see André hunched over the piano in their living room, a frown etched onto his face.

"André?" Tori asked, rubbing her eyes from sleep. What in the world was he doing here at two forty in the morning?

He didn't answer, just continued to study the black and white keys as if they held the key to ending world hunger. In fact, some might not be surprised if the piano keys did from the look of pure intensity on the dark skinned musician's face.

"An-dré," Tori called in a singsong tone.

Still, he stared, completely oblivious to the brunette's voice.

"ANDRÉ!" she yelled. Tori had seen André like this before. It was only a relief that it hadn't gone as far as needing any sort of chocolate beverage to help him cope.

He jumped up with a yell, his concentration completely lost.

A smile spreading across her face at her success, she asked, "What are you doing here? At nearly three AM?" The smile slid into a slight frown and she continued with her interrogation with, "And how did you even get in here?"

"I can't practice or compose at home past ten or else my grandma thinks a ghost is playing the piano or whatever and is going to go up and murder her. So she yells for me to go kill the ghost before freaking out over how 'it can't die! It can't die! It's unnatural!'" André finished the explanation with a creepily good imitation of his grandmother.

Tori leaned against the piano with one hand on her hip and the other giving him a 'go on' like gesture.

"And I got in here because your mom likes me and told me where you guys keep the extra key."

Tori rolled her eyes. That was just like her mom to disregard all of the rules of safety Dad had up to prevent intruders. It was just a good thing it was André she told and not someone else like Sinjin or Robbie even if the latter was getting over his creepier tendencies.

"So what're you all wonky about this time?" she asked, moving forward to plop herself down beside him on the piano bench.

"Sikowitz decided last minute that his play had to be a musical so I had to write him four songs. I wrote three of them and then he told me that he changed his mind again and just wanted one song which was the song I hadn't written. And now I'm stuck." With that, André dropped his head onto the piano, releasing yet another wave of tuneless noise.

Tori threw back her head and laughed a little, but quickly stopped and said, "Okay, let me help you. What's the song about?"

André didn't lift his head so at first, Tori didn't understand what he was saying.

She deciphered it as best she could and came up with "It's one of those congressing love songs."

"Congressing?"

André's head suddenly shot up, making Tori yelp in surprise, and he yelled, "CONFESSING!" before dropping his head again.

Tori sighed. André was obviously tired and his brain wasn't exactly healthy and ready for song writing at that moment.

"Okay, Mr. Music Man, off the piano bench, you can sleep on the couch and we'll work on the song together tomorrow."

He muttered something incomprehensible which Tori took as a yes and proceeded to try to drag him to the couch.

It took at least twenty more minutes (a toppled piano bench and a slightly battered André later), but she managed to lug him over to couch where he curled up and fell asleep.

Tori just knew she was going to be tired the next day. Just what she needed for the first rehearsal of The Blonde Squad.