Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious, nor any manifestation of it.
Her lips ghost my neck, fluttering, a mixture of breath and touch and teeth. She's in my house. A first. She's in my room.
She's in my bed.
It's dark but it doesn't make a difference. There were times before when closing my eyes could keep me from knowing it's her, but my fingertips have learned her form too well. She's her in every curve, every muscle and bone and goosebump. She's braille I've learnt to read, and she says Tori in stuttering script. Tori in everything she is.
Beck was quiet when I told him, shoulders hunched together. He'd stared at his tapping shoe, fingers tented in his lap. Maybe it's for the best. He said I was never really there, never really with him. That while my arms held him close and my lips moved on his, my eyes were always far away, my eyebrows always drawn down. That all he was left with was my body, a house with no one in it. He said he was tired of squatting in my heart, just waiting for its true owner to move in and kick him out. And she'd finally arrived, bags packed. He didn't seem angry. Emotion isn't Beck's style, and it's something that drew me to him at first. He promised serenity, and it's what he gave. I left him just as quietly.
All those memories. The bathroom. The car. Her room, lights off. The park. All the memories that seemed so hard, and jagged and painful, are nothing compared to now. I don't know what I thought'd happen. Like it'd suddenly be easy to be with her. Like everything would just click, and instead of loving Beck, I'd be loving her. A simple little switch. It's not easy though. It's not what I thought it'd be. All the romantic comedies... they don't have anything like this. It's all misunderstandings and hurt feelings and confusion, but it always ends neatly, wrapped up with a little bow, a kiss pressed against it. Not that I ever believed any of that romantic junk anyway. Being with Tori is messy, and sometimes it's like I'm still not even with her. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm not fighting her anymore, that I don't have to kill that urge to kiss her, to brush her hair away from her cheek when it spills over. I have to remind myself that who we are isn't what keeps us apart anymore. It's what lets us be together.
Tori presses a soft kiss along my jaw, followed by a quick, bright smile, a fingertip running down my cheek. The TV chatters in the background, a dry British voice narrating as a bunch of hyenas take down an antelope. The pack tears it apart, blood coating their muzzles, yelping and squealing as Tori's lips trace my neck again, her breath soft and warm. My fingertips slip under her short sleeves, skin warm and taut as an unidentifiable organ is dragged free from the carcass onscreen, purple and red and yellow.
She feels so soft and tastes so sweet. So why do I feel like that antelope? Like she's tearing me apart.
I don't think it's easy for her either. Tori's used to sweetness, to boys telling her how pretty she is, how nice she is, how wonderful she is. She might be all those things, but she's seldom heard me say them. I think she thought being with me would... I don't know, open up some touchy-feely side of me. But the only touching and feeling we're doing is on the outside. Neither of us has ever really fought for someone. We're so accustomed to people fighting for us. Of course we are, we're actresses. We expect it. Tori has my heart in her jaws, and her teeth are none too gentle.
"Can I...?" A whispered question, Tori's hand hovering over my stomach, fingertips just brushing the top of my jeans. I nod, tongue running out over my lips as she unfastens the button, and I swear for just a moment I taste blood. She's gentle. She's so gentle.
Maybe that's why we're having to fight so hard. Because we're not fighting anymore. We get along. We talk, we kiss, we share coffee. We've cut off our locked horns, and now we don't know what to do with our bare heads. Maybe it's so hard to be with her because it's not hard to be with her. We're still us, but we're trying so hard not to be. To be the versions of us where we can be together, and not drive each other crazy. We've toned ourselves down to greyscale, to shadows, and it's not working. Being with her isn't working, because I'm not with her.
I'm not with the girl who drove me insane. I'm not with the girl who antagonised me, and challenged me, and bowed and swayed but never broke. I'm with somebody's girlfriend, not with Tori, and I'm starting to realise that there was never any chance of us being together if only we were other people. The only way we work is when we're us, and it's angry and ugly and painful, but it feels a lot more like loving her than this does.
Her hand is in my pants, her lips are on mine, and it feels like her, it even tastes like her. But my heart isn't racing, my hips aren't shivering. It's like being with her is a dream I'm trying to remember, and all I'm getting is this faded version, drifting in and out of focus. I want her fire, I want her claws. I want her teeth to stop pricking my heart, and just snap down on it until it bursts. I want what I never had with Beck; passion. Without it, Tori's just like him. A safe place for me to rest. I'm tired of feeling safe.
"This isn't working." I murmur, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
Tori's hand stops, slipping out of my pants. "What isn't? The...?" She wiggles her fingers, looking concerned. She's so unsure of herself in the bedroom. Always pausing to ask if it's okay, always twisting and turning to see if I'll suddenly unlock for her. She's not the girl who fucked me in my car, who grinned and teased me.
"Us. We're not working." I push my hair back, propping myself up to look at her better. "I want you, not Tori Lite."
Her eyebrows furrow down, eyes dark. "Jade, I don't get it. You have me." Her mouth twists. "You've had me for a long time." She adds softly, eyes flicking down.
"I don't have you." My tone is sharp, scornful. "I've got the Tori everyone else has. So sweet and kind and caring. You touch me like I'm your goddamn Pearphone, and you're afraid you'll smudge the screen."
Tori takes a short breath, nostrils flaring. "Well it's not like you're doing anything to keep me. I thought if we started dating you might thaw out a little, but you're still the frickin' Ice Queen. What do you want, Jade? What do you want from me?"
"I want this."
Tori raises an eyebrow, trying to keep a scowl off her face. "You want us to fight?"
"I didn't fall in love with a pacifist." The dry British voice crackles in the background, crocodile lunging out of the water. "Are you really happy like this, Tori? Are you happy?"
She licks her lips. "It doesn't hurt as much."
"Maybe it has to hurt." I say dismissively, lowering myself back to the bed.
Tori's jaw sets, a muscle in her cheek flickering. Her lips twitch like she's itching to say a dozen things, a score of vicious dogs leaping on a leash she longs to let go of. But she reins them in, caging them in her teeth. There's only one thing that slips through the gaps, more cat than canine, hissed from between her lips. "You want it to hurt?"
Her nails prick my shoulders, and then it's teeth, sharp and hard and electric on my neck. She bites down until I'm seeing stars, heart racing wildly in my chest, and the documentary on TV just seems like a prophecy now. But in this scenario, I'm a hyena too. I dig my fingers under Tori's chin, raising her face to me roughly. She gasps when I bite her lip, sinking my teeth in until she whimpers. "What's the matter Tori? Can't take the pain?" I jibe, nails pricking her jaw.
Her lower lip is swollen, cheeks flushed, a sheen over her chocolate eyes like she's feverish, and maybe I am making her sick. "You have no idea how much pain I've taken from you. Do you wanna know what it's like to be fucked by you? Do you?"
Part of me wonders whether Tori knows I'm toying with her, goading her into what I want, what I need from her. I said I was done playing games with her, but it's better than sitting in silence, screen flashing. She's just a toy I don't want to break anymore. I'd rather play with the things I love than leave them on the shelf to collect dust.
"Hurt me, Tori."
That's all it takes. I can taste the anger in every hard kiss, broken only to breathe, feel the pain in every sharp nip on my lips, my neck. My collarbone. Her hand shoves itself into my pants, nails scraping where her fingers previously tip-toed and tremored. She forces two fingers into me with a grunt, and it hurts. It makes my hips cringe and my toes curl, breath dying in my lungs. Her thrusts are hard, fingers twisting, and her teeth keep me gasping, bucking on the bed. I shut my eyes tight and it's like I'm not even here with her. No, I'm pressed against the cold tiled wall of our school bathroom, heart in my throat and adrenaline in my veins. I'm Tori and she's me, and there's this pain in my stomach that's feathered with gnawing fear. But there's hope mixed in there too.
Tori wanted me to feel her pain, to feel every little arrow I shot into her with every kiss, every touch. I feel it, and it's just what I want. I come with a loud moan, hips twitching up into her hand, chasing the friction she steals with every withdrawal. I don't want her to stop, I tell her not to stop, but it's over. She's sobbing wet breaths onto my neck, skin hot and throbbing, and her claws slip back into their sheaths. Tori's still learning how to hunt. Her anger burns itself out too quickly, turns back and scorches her instead.
"Fuck. Why do you do this?" She whimpers it in a helpless voice, hand dragging itself out of my undone pants.
"Because I love you."
"Do you?" She raises her head to stare at me, eyebrows drawn together. "Because you loving me doesn't feel all that different from you hating me."
My heart's still tapping her name out in Morse code, pushing the syllables up into my bitten throat, hips still shaking from my painful climax. "I love you. Even when I hated you, I still loved you."
"So why isn't this working? Why can't it just be easy now?"
"Maybe it's not meant to be for us. Maybe we're supposed to keep hurting."
There's a hollow look in her face, hidden in her cheekbones. "So what do we do?"
I lick my lips, raising a shaky hand to her face. "Do you love me?"
She nods against my palm, cheek soft and warm.
"Then we keep fighting until somebody loses. I want you. I want you like this. I want it to hurt, to sting just to look at you. It hurts to love you Tori, and I don't want it to stop."
She's quiet, hand on my hip, head on my shoulder. She's angled her body so that her hip brushes mine, thigh on the verge of slipping between my legs. She holds it back. "Does it always have to be like this?"
I don't know what to tell her. I can't spin some fairytale bullshit that we'll be together forever, and have 2.5 kids in a nice little house in the suburbs. We could collapse in on ourselves at any moment, lose the fuel that keeps us going and flame out. There's no guarantees with us, no safety net. If we fall, we break our necks, and that's the end. Close curtains.
"Maybe."
She sighs into my shirt, hand moving to ball on my stomach. Tori pushes herself up a little after a moment, dropping a soft kiss on my cheek.
"Okay." Her tone is one of resignation, of acceptance. She knows as well as I do that it was never going to be easy, that it was never going to be simple. That our puzzle pieces wouldn't just click, they'd have to be stomped in and cut to fit. She knows, and it feels just like she does, it feels like everything with her does.
Bittersweet