Hey all! Maybewolf and I would like to take up this little space and say that we are so sorry for our absence, it's been due to this little thing we like to call life, and writer's block. But, we are back with this spectacular chapter and we hope you enjoy it.
Also, we have been asked when is Cat going to appear. We would like to say that she hasn't been forgotten and that her absence has been done on purpose. She will make an appearance in a couple chapters or so, but she hasn't been totally forgotten.
Lifting his head from his pillows at the sound of his alarm blaring, Robbie groans. November 13th, his birthday.
He doesn't feel so bad this year, maybe it's because school isn't an exercise in solitude now. The word still feels foreign in his head, but Robbie's insulated from his darkest thoughts by his friends. During biology where he would have agonized over his unwilling lab partner, Tori happily reels him into conversation. During English where he would have occupied a table to himself, Robbie huddles around a table with Beck and Andre and Jade during group discussions. During lunch periods, a time when strangers glares were at their most discerning, Robbie finds himself insulated by the warmth of Andres laugh or the burn of his own cheeks when Tori smiles at him. Life isn't so bad, it's kind of nice that preparing for school in the morning has become such a mundane experience.
Like clockwork, Robbie is whirring through his morning routine when something breaks up the monotony of it all. There's a knock at the door, too loud to be a solicitor or a Jehovah's Witness. Eyebrows screwing over the bridge of his nose, Robbie approaches the door, a touch of anxiety in his gait.
"Happy day of birth, Rob. Got you this" Beck says, a crooked grin hanging from his lips as Robbie eases the front door open. He's jabbing a package between them.
Bewildered, Robbie plucks the object from Beck's outstretched hand and gapes down at it. The packaging is haphazard, but triumphantly covering whatever it is that Canadian teenagers gift to their friends. Swiping his thumb across the object in his hands Robbie feels a little overwhelmed, but it's in a pretty awesome way.
"How did you – I didn't mention having a birthday!" Robbie exclaims, shaking his gift slightly.
"Asked your mom in September, set a reminder on my PearPhone for yesterday." Beck shrugs, staring at Robbie with a mixture of confusion and fascination. His eyes are squinted, lips all twisted up. It's an expression that Robbie imagines Beck might greet an alien with.
"It's -" Robbie briefly considers mounting a protest that a present is too much, but maybe this is just what friends do. He'd dismissed it as fiction from the television, but this gift and the moment associated with it feel incredibly genuine. Rethinking his response, Robbie smiles broadly. "Thanks man, it's awesome."
"You haven't even opened it." Beck counters, bemused.
"I know." Robbie says, pinching a loose end of paper between his fingers and tearing it open. Beneath the paper is a simple black shirt. The Beatles, it proudly announces when Robbie unfurls it.
"Tori wouldn't shut up about them in our screenwriting class." Beck explains, again shrugging carelessly. Robbie feels slightly touched that Beck is trying to make him seem cooler to their friends, Tori specifically.
Without Beck's insistence, Robbie immediately retreats into the bathroom and pulls the shirt over his head. He's just trying to show his gratitude. It's not the prospect of looking cooler in Tori's eyes.
Honestly it isn't.
Okay, maybe it is.
"The Beatles!?" Tori shrieks, barely in her seat beside him in Biology. Without warning, her slender fingers fly out, smoothing out Robbie's shirt to inspect the design.
Naturally, his cheeks immediately blaze with the heat of a summer in the Sahara. Tori doesn't realize this immediately though, eyes fixed on his shirt for an inordinate amount of time. Robbie wonder if this is how attractive girls feel when they walk past and boys stare at them all moonily. Eventually, agonizingly slowly, Tori's eyes crawl up to Robbie's face. Sheepishly, she unhands his shirt and slowly slinks back into her seat.
"Sorry." The apology springs from Tori's lips between a nervous chuckle. Her cheeks are pink. She's flustered, adorably so.
"S'ok." Robbie says brightly, mood incandescent.
There's a brief pause after that, during which Robbie absently tugs at the hem of the shirt Tori had been so interested in. When Tori does speak again, it's a new topic. Speaking enthusiastically, Tori regales Robbie with another tale of Vega family bonding gone awry. Last night's mishap had culminated in Trina accidently breaking their father's nose with a golf club. The scene Tori's words paint is vivid, Robbie's face pales. Tori laughs loudly and brightly at his reaction of horror. Affectionately jabbing at his shoulder, Tori blithely informs him that her story was nothing compared to the time Jade's family went to the zoo.
For a change, chemistry class is actually fairly productive for Robbie and Tori. A shift that can possibly be attributed to the way Mr Ferguson hovers around them for most of class. By the time the bell is screaming that the period is over, Robbie feels like their project is really coming together.
"See you at lunch." Tori announces, wriggling her fingers in his direction with a delicate farewell. She does the same thing every day, but Robbie still marvels at the fact that it's directed at him. Shaking his head and feeling fortunate, Robbie scrapes together his books and heads for the door, a spring in his step.
The rest of the day is easy, skipping past Robbie without so much as a hitch. The one wrinkle in his morning before lunch is Jade unnecessarily threatening him into giving her a pen during their English class. Robbie feels like her personality is maybe just stuck to hostile by default. He would have given it to her with a simple request.
Lunch period is where everything flies off the rails.
The first thirteen minutes drift past amid a sea of mindless banter, pleasant but nothing meaningful. Robbie drifts in and out of the conversation. Jade is describing a concert that had been gnarly in her words. Beck listens intently, a touch of awe in his posture, while Tori recoils in horror at the mention of what exactly a crust punk is. Robbie's just reminded that he hasn't quite finished his chord progression exercise for Guitar Theory. Innocently enough, he plunges his hand into his bag, intent on fishing out his workbook.
The best laid plans, they don't always come to fruition.
Robbie's got foggy recollections of packing the book, but his book bag stubbornly disagrees. Increasingly frantic, Robbie darts from Tori's side with an undignified shriek of frustration. As he flies across the quad, Robbie hears Tori's cries of concern and Jade's amusement. Wedging a door leading to his locker open, Robbie makes a mental note to explain the situation to them when he returns, workbook safely tucked under his arm.
Again, best laid plans, not always so very reliable.
Robbie returns to the table beneath the balcony, shoulders low. He cuts a defeated figure as he drops into his seat beside Tori. The book he's been looking for, has been thrown to a far-flung corner of the world, or more likely left on his desk at home. Despondent, Robbie folds his arms on the table and drops his head into them.
"Robbie, are you okay?" Tori asks, concern lacing the question. Robbie doesn't look up immediately, but when he does, Tori's hovering near him, eyebrows crouched down over her eyes.
"I'm – I lost my Guitar Theory work book!" Robbie cries, once again retreating into the crook of his elbow. Mr Gallen, the Guitar Theory tutor is tightly wound at the best of times. A small man with a massive vein in his forehead, Robbie feels fretful at the prospect of announcing that his homework is gone. Things might not be so bad if Andre were around to mellow Mr Gallen with his incredible talent, but he's away sick today. Tori mentioned him sending her a text, something about bad ketchup and his crazy grandmother. Robbie feels his stomach churn mutinously, perhaps attempting to lure him out of danger and into the nurses office. Robbie sighs. He's never been one for ditching class, not matter how great the temptation.
"People lose music all the time, the world's an imperfect place." It's Jade's voice that tugs Robbie upright this time. A typically flippant remark, but they're not really her words. Robbie recognises the quote, taken from a movie almost perpetually stuck in his DVD player.
"You've seen The Breakfast Club?" He's never really openly questioned Jade about anything before, but the question's flown from Robbie mouth before he can help himself. Predictably enough, Jade is unimpressed by his insolence. She eyes him critically over the top of her coffee cup. A small part of his soul surely shrivels up under Jade's scrutiny. The rest of him is just curious, he's never really pictured Jade watching anything other than horror movies and maybe documentaries about equally as horrible people.
"It's so good, I love the bit with the er, breakfast." Tori chimes in, all enthusiasm and wild inaccuracy. Jade's eyes circle upwards, exasperation invading her features. Beck grins down at the phone in his palm. Robbie just watches Tori nodding expectantly at the rest of them.
"The Breakfa – Goddammit Vega, I know you've never even seen The Breakfast Club. You get paranoid when I suggest we got to a PG-13 movie." Jade hisses, shaking her head incredulously.
With this information Robbie's eyebrows perk and he glances sidelong at Tori. More then anything, he wonders why she'd bother to feign the opposite. A fondness for old teen movies, it's not the more desirable trait in popular society. Whilst Robbie contemplates this, the conversation between Tori and Jade rapidly descends into an incomprehensible rumble. There might be a subtext to what they're saying, but if there is, Robbie can't make it out. Girls; sometimes Robbie thinks subtitles denoting intent would be marvellous.
"Fine." Jade sneers, hands slamming against the table. "If you're such a big fan, we'll go and see it at the theatre."
"Uh…I think you're about twenty years too late, Jade." With the comment, a grin spreads Beck's lips. Just like that, Jade's eyes swings away from Tori. Snarling, she narrows her eyes in Beck's direction.
"I know that. Ever heard of the dive theatre on 47th, Beckett?" Jade says coldly, arms folding and falling like concrete against her chest.
"I have, yes." The answer is simple and Beck nods along as if stumbling across something incredibly obviously. For the barest of seconds, Jade's expression softens. She doesn't chill the blood in Robbie's veins. But then -
"Yeah, well they're showing it all month, which last time I checked, is not twenty years ago, Beckett." Jade snaps, tone so cold Robbie feels like he's getting frostbite. Frowning at the way things have fallen apart without Andre keeping the peace, Robbie drags a fairly lifeless looking sandwich from his bag. It tastes equally as uninspiring. Robbie suspects that it might just be bland enough to make Jade docile.
"So, I like your shirt." Tori says under her breath, ducking her head in Robbie's direction and pointedly ignoring the battlefield across the table. "I don't think I've seen you wear it before, is it new?" She adds, popping a vibrantly coloured gummy worm into her mouth and chewing thoughtfully.
"It's uh, yeah. I got it this morning actually." Robbie admits, tentatively edging around the fact that today happens to be his birthday.
"This morning as in before school today this morning?" Tori wonders aloud, eyes brightening with curiosity.
"I uh, yeah. Beck gave it to me." Robbie murmurs, lips curving with the dim hope that maybe Tori will decide not to interrogate him further. That dim hope is extinguishing when Tori straightens her shoulders and turns to Beck, eyes narrowed.
"You gave Robbie a Beatles shirt?" Tori asks, charging headfirst into the battle between Beck and Jade. Fearlessly, she holds Beck's gaze when he turns away from Jade, eyes still blazing.
"Uh, yeah. It was his birthday present." Beck says slowly, eyes meandering around the table, caught off guard by Tori's sudden intrusion. Jade's expression mirror his, eyebrows askew, lips slightly parted. Tori makes a loud gasping sound, eyes impossibly huge all of a sudden. There are times where she reminds Robbie of a cartoon character, maybe Bugs Bunny.
"It's your birthday?" Tori shrieks, a combination of incredulity and hurt creasing her face as she Robbie's shoulder with her palms. Slightly terrified that his actions affect Tori in any way, Robbie shrinks away, cradling his arm. Beck and Jade call a ceasefire, watching with interest as Tori huffs with indignation. Robbie isn't sure how exactly it's happened, but suddenly his birthday is the central focus of their little table. Not really sure how deal with it, Robbie wrings his fingers fretfully and stares into his lap.
"It's – uh, yes." He eventually manages, tactfully watching a bird what's flittering around behind Tori. Having real conversations with people is something Robbie's not really used to. He's even less used to disappointing girls as pretty as Tori Vega.
"I'm so," Tori pauses, face crumpling up. "Robbie, I wish that I could have gotten you something!" Tori exclaims, bottom lip jutting into a pout. Robbie bites the inside of his cheek, willing it not to stain red because of the intense way Tori is watching him.
"It's uh, you didn't have to." Robbie says, jostling his shoulders uncomfortably. Tori smiles faintly, tightly as though she doesn't quite believe him.
"Shapiro, it's your birthday. Shouldn't you be like a little excited, you robot?" Jade drawls, tone not entirely hostile. Beck's head snaps in her direction, disbelief furrowing his brow. Robbie supposes Jade just appreciates that Robbie is sometimes able to divert Beck's attention from her or maybe Tori says good things about his aptitude in Chemistry.
"Yeah, you should be doing something for your birthday, Robbie. I'm taking you to The Breakfast Club, to see it – we're all going!" Tori hums agreeably, all of a sudden sparkling with excitement. Her eyes have softened, and Robbie feels touched that she looks so excited about his birthday.
"Really, you're going to watch an R-rated movie?" Jade says loudly, staring pointedly at Tori. Robbie watches as something passes between the two girls, maybe a telepathic thought or something. Tori jolts her head to the side, expression sharp as she mouths something to Jade. Jade heaves a rough sigh, glares at everyone and everything around her. "Fine. Okay. Vega, just because I want see you wazzing out, we'll go to the movies with Shapiro and Bender Junior here."
"The robot?" Tori asks, eyebrows furrowing as Beck whoops triumphantly in the background.
"The ro – the freaking robot?" Jade hisses, eyebrows swooping down in great frustration. Tori's eyes widen like a deer in front of an Eighteen-Wheeler. Robbie takes that to mean that the vein in Jade's forehead means nothing but bad things for the person to have invoked it.
Thinking quickly, Robbie plucks his phone from his pocket and rapidly swipes his finger across the screen. "Here." Robbie squeaks in what he hopes is a surreptitious way. Tori peers down at the images of The Breakfast Club that he's pulled up, lips parting slightly with realization.
"Oh," Tori intones slowly, eyes twitching back to Jade. "The Beck looking guy, the one in the denim." She adds earnestly. Jade cocks an eyebrow, but remains otherwise impassive.
Mercifully, the bell rings before Jade has a chance to explode or Tori has the chance to reconsider. Robbie squawks a hurried goodbye and sets flight for Guitar Theory. After living through that experience, Mr Gallen really doesn't seem so scary.
Well, that was a fabulous chapter wasn't it? You guys should leave reviews and whatnot.
Also, it would be fantastic if you would check out "We're Going Nowhere" by Maybewolf. Drop a review and give that story some love!