/JADE/
I shut the screen to my laptop, wanting to physically kick myself. For some inane reason, I was feeding this fire. Throwing more and more kindling to the inferno to see how high I could build the flames, knowing they would eventually spiral out of control and consume me. It was becoming fairly obvious that our once "stagnant" relationship was changing and as much as we tried to fight it, deny it, we couldn't do anything. Vega and I had never been overly friendly with each other, but all this time we've spent together and the things we'd learned about one another, it felt like raindrops in a small pond, the ripples interrupting our mutual relationship and carrying on across the waters despite us trying to stop it.
I head upstairs to the kitchen to wait for Tori, my brain still trying to spin it's overused gears to figure out what we were. I still couldn't put a name on it. I hated pigeonholing, and I wasn't even sure whatever we shared required a label anyway. So I wouldn't give it one. I run my fingertips along the laminate unit, enjoying the way the cool surface felt on my skin. She was Tori, plain and simple really. She was sweet, stupid, and I would still refuse to admit it openly, but I enjoyed our conversations, and maybe even her company.
I survey the pristine kitchen with a scowl. Everything had it's place. My step mother made sure of it. The pots and pans had to be all lined up perfectly, the utensils had their own separate drawer. It was always too chrome, too neat and none of us spent any time in the kitchen, but it was all about keeping up appearances. The immaculate monochrome presentation; a mask for the dysfunctional West household.
My eyes catch a set of approaching car headlights and I walk to the main entrance, impatiently waiting for the sound of the doorbell. The handle rattles as someone inserts a key from the other side and I take a step back, watching my step mother strut into the house with her cell phone plastered to her ear, paying absolutely zero attention to her surroundings.
Nothing new there.
"No, no Jeffery. I said I needed those set prints by tonight. I have the commissions board meeting tomorrow." She sets some papers down on the table, looking up in surprise to see me standing in the kitchen. Her lips twitch into a stiff smile which I don't return, crossing my arms over my chest. "No, I need them by 9 at the latest. Hal and his wife are going to be there and I want to make sure everything runs smoothly. Yes...no, no I said no. Fine, call me back in a minute." She jabs the end call button, deciding to direct her limited attention at me. "Why are you in the kitchen?"
"Why can't I be in the kitchen?" I shoot back. She sighs and gathers up her papers.
"I've worked hard to keep it spotless. Whatever you make, clean it up afterwards." My mouth opens to fling back a retort but she's already gone, the sound of her ridiculously expensive high heels clicking into the private study before the door slams shut.
Wow. 3 seconds of conversation. Gotta be a record.
The doorbell chimes and I jolt, quickly composing myself and smoothing down my skirt. I open the front door, greeted with a beaming and overly enthusiastic Tori with two shopping bags in her hands. Wordlessly, I take the bags and set them down on the counter, leaving her to take care of shutting the front door. I shake out the contents, curious when a small packet of coffee beans tumble out along with everything else.
"Oh yeah, I overheard you telling Cat you were almost out of coffee yesterday." Tori shrugs it off and hops up on one of the bar stools.
"Thanks." I mutter, somewhat touched, putting the little bag of beans on my side of the cupboard. She stays seated, her eyes not even wandering around the house and I raise an eyebrow. "What? That's it? You're just going to sit there? You finally made it into my house, Tori. I would have figured you'd be sticking your nose in everything by now." She turns on her seat to flash me a sly grin.
"I'm waiting until we get to your bedroom for that." I whip around, almost dropping the whisk and slowly watch the color drain from her cheeks in realization.
"Oh no, no no! What I meant was you've snooped around my bedroom before, so I was going to - I mean, if I could get into your bedroom..." She starts to trip over her words, so I decide to give her my full attention, tilting my head teasingly to draw out the torture.
"You could at least take me out on a date first, Tori." I smirk as her pale cheeks turn from pink to crimson. My hand reaches around to retrieve the flour, and I let Tori carry on, spluttering like an idiot.
"Well-well according to that guy, our cupcakes were technically... a date?" I turn back to catch Vega wiggling her eyebrows, my lips twitching automatically before I smooth over the hidden smile.
"Just get off your ass and help me make these cupcakes." She rolls her eyes but obeys, taking a white apron to tie around her waist.
I start laying out the rest of our equipment, taking little to no care in ensuring everything was back where it belonged. I can sense a slight awkwardness in the air, but neither of us comment on it, my scissor blades ripping into the bag of flour to pour it onto the measuring scales.
"Hang on, it wasn't set to zero." Tori suddenly steps up behind me, reaching around my hip to adjust the numbers. I could feel her warm breath on my neck. She pushes the buttons to set the correct measurement, before pulling away quickly and consulting her pearphone for various recipes. My eyes narrow, my fingers briskly whisking it out of her hands to shove in my apron pocket.
"Hey! Gimme back my phone!"
"No. We're using my recipe. None of that below standard internet junk." I keep her phone held hostage, preheating the oven. "You'll get it back after we make the batter." I hear Tori huff, but she doesn't say anything else, cracking open the tin of baking powder to sift into the mixture with a grumble.
We work in silence for a few minutes, delegating our own jobs. Of course it's Tori who has to break the quiet.
"So what would be your ideal career?" I stop stirring, fixing her with a look.
"Is this your not so subtle hint you want to play 20 questions?"
"Possibly. What's your answer?" I lean my head back on my neck, licking the front of my teeth.
"Acting or directing. I'd love to direct an original horror movie someday. You?" I crack open the eggs, enjoying the way the yolk slipped out from it's shell.
"I'd like to be a really successful singer. " Tori smiles wistfully, dusting the flour from her apron. "Someone everyone remembers."
"Except you're too predictable." I finish whisking, listening to the immediate huff of protest.
"Hey! I'm not that predictable!" Tori suddenly reaches around, dipping her hand into the bowl of red velvet batter and gathers some on her finger with a challenge in her eyes. "I mean, did you predict I'd do that, Jade?" She questions, pointing her batter covered finger at me.
Without hesitation, without even pausing to think about what I was doing, I take two steps towards Tori, opening my mouth to suck the batter from her fingertip.
All of my mental connections are fried and I only taste red velvet and skin, making sure to hold my eye contact as I slowly lapped my tongue around to clean up all the mixture. This was insane, it was absolutely fucking crazy. So why did it feel so right? Vega's frozen in extreme shock, her mouth gaping open and I pull back satisfied, running my tongue along my top lip with a barely audible moan. I'd argue it was to simply show I was erratic. I was more dangerous than Vega even knew- though deep down, I knew I'd done it for another reason.
"Now did you predict that, Tori?" I watch the Latina open and close her mouth wordlessly, noises coming from her lips but nothing intelligible. She continues to gawp at me and I'm tempted to close her mouth myself. It might possibly send her into cardiac arrest. I give her an innocent little smile, returning back to my work and revel in rendering Tori speechless while I carefully spooned the batter into cupcake cases, putting them in the oven with a timer this time.
Predictable my ass.
"I- you... batter." Tori stammers behind me and I laugh, sweeping my own finger in the bowl to get some left over batter for myself. I turn around and almost holler in surprise, Vega standing practically two inches from my face. She lets out a low, playful growl and grabs my hand, parting her lips without hesitation to take my finger into her mouth, swirling her tongue around the digit.
Time seems to come to a complete standstill in that very moment, her eyes locked on mine fearlessly while she sucked and nipped at my finger. Maybe I was imagining it but she seemed to hold it longer in her mouth than necessary. Now it's my turn to stand in shock, Vega's hot tongue stirring something inside me, another moan involuntarily making it past my lips. Her eyes glint in triumph at my slip, letting out a moan of her own, the sound vibrating around my finger. It was so fucking...hot and my blood was getting heated, already wondering what else Tori could do, what else she could make me feel. Finally, she releases my finger with a smirk, drawing back to run her own finger along her lips.
"If this is how we're eating cupcake batter from now on, I'm not protesting." She grins like an idiot and I'm half inclined to reach out and grab her, take those apron strings and yank them so her body was crushed against mine, just to see what would happen. "I'll also be taking this back." I feel her reach into my apron pocket, groping around until she found her phone.
I swear she was doing this on purpose.
I try and scowl but I could sense Tori could see right through it, a little streak of jealousy erupting within me as she started texting someone else.
"Okay, well if you're going to do that, then I totally call dibs on the rest of the cupcake batter."
Tori snaps her head up from her phone. "Hey! Wait! Not fair, I want some more!" She lunges for the bowl but I beat her to it, snatching it out of reach.
"Oh way too slow, Vega!" I taunt and tuck it underneath my arm.
"Alright fine, I guess...I'm gonna have to tickle it from you then!"
"Wait. What?! No!" I watch Tori's eyes dance playfully, arms reaching out to try and grab at me. I shriek and stumble away in a panic, bolting though the kitchen to the living room, shouting various death threats over my shoulder. "If you touch me, I have no problem with killing you! We have a freezer in the basement! It would take them weeks to find your remains!" I stop, realizing Tori wasn't giving chase anymore and make the fatal mistake of turning back.
"Gotcha!" I yelp and trip over on the carpeted floor, feeling Tori's body pinning me to the ground. She sits up, her legs straddling me on either side, the bowl plucked from my hands, much to my annoyance.
"Hey! Hey get off of me!" My legs kick in irritation but Tori doesn't budge, happily sitting on me while she stuck her finger in the batter. She was freakishly and unnaturally strong for a woman who weighed about 110 pounds, and no matter how much I struggled , I couldn't shift her. I can hear Vega making overly exaggerated moaning noises above me, obviously trying to get a reaction. It was working. I snarl, digging my nails into her hips, tickling underneath her ribs until she was forced to move, reclaiming the bowl of batter.
"Hey! That's cheating!" Tori growls, rushing at me to knock me on my back again.
We roll over and over on the carpet in a miniature wrestling match, arms and legs tangled all over one another. She's laughing, I'm swearing and we both knew it was childish and juvenile, but it didn't stop us.
Vega and I had existed in a delicate balance of a power struggle. Always trying to one up the other, and it's precisely what made us work, and made it all come together.
We manage to find ourselves underneath the window sill, the dying rays of sunlight hitting my skin. Tori's eyes resembled warm coffee, slight golden flecks merged with brown, her hair falling over her face as she grins and wraps her fingers around my wrists to hold me down. Now I really didn't care what the hell we were, labels, categories and whatever else aside. I was done fighting it. I was finished with my denial. It was only when I stopped trying to push us into a mold, I realized I wanted whatever this was. I wanted her.
I wanted Tori Vega.
Her parted lips are centimeters from my own and I think about how easy it would be to close the gap, breach the barrier I had thrown up between us. All of the insults, the hatred and the resentment were beginning to fall away, that numb aching feeling I'd felt for weeks after Beck, had already been replaced by her, I just hadn't admitted it yet. I feel a rush of - I wanted to say- almost...happiness, exhaustion crippling my defenses now that I was no longer fighting with myself.
It makes me want to laugh out loud with relief.
Could it really be this simple?
"Jade? Is that you banging around out there? I'm trying to work. Keep it down." My step mother's voice cuts through the door of her study, effectively ruining the moment. Tori waggles her eyebrows at me, before offering out a hand to help me get up and I take it, brushing myself down from our battle.
"My wonderful step mom. She wouldn't care if I was being murdered out here, as long as she finishes her scripts." I mutter, picking at some pieces of carpet from my shirt. The bowl of half eaten batter lies on the ground, ignored and I curl my fists, deeply irritated with my step monster's interruption.
Within two seconds, she had broken our spell, made all my doubts, questions and insecurities come roaring back, this time with a vengeance because I had, had the naivety to try and ignore them. I watch Vega shift on the balls of her feet, a little awkward smile tugging her lips. I clear my throat and stoop down to retrieve the bowl from the floor, thankful the timer dinged for the cupcakes seconds after.
I head back into the kitchen and casually shove on a pair of oven gloves, talking to distract myself from whatever it was that had just happened.
"When I was about 9, I shoved my hands in this oven because I thought my ice cold soul would combat the heat."
"Why does that not surprise me?" Tori chuckles from behind, her hand tentatively reaching out to run across my back.
It's only a very small touch, barely a brief skim of her fingers, but I could feel the heat through the fabric of my shirt. There was no mistaking it, she was getting bolder every time we got together. She was already well aware I gave her exceptions to my rule. Special "liberties" which she could get away with and no one else could, and it seemed she was determined to use them all tonight, almost testing me for my reactions. I stand up quickly and set the tray on the table. Half of me was still determined to resist what I wanted, while the other half was wondering why I was still even trying.
Rarely, did I not go after something or someone I wanted. Except Tori was in a different...league? Okay, I say league, it was more like we lived on two separate worlds. Her world was inhabited by sunshine, optimism and rainbows. Mine was overcast with thunderstorms, death and destruction. They shouldn't mix. But gradually gravity was beginning to pull us closer; conversations, laughter and understanding...
Until eventually our worlds had to collide.
A/N: Another real scene from the original roleplay. So now you know that if anyone calls you predictable, you just seductively suck on their finger! Sorted. I'm telling you now that you don't want to miss next week's update, that's for sure ;) Reviews for the January blues?