you're only a day away

summary: stop trying to grow up so fast. becktori. non-linear.
disclaimer: victorious isn't mine

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iv: four

It's raining.

But, it's always raining, water coming in rivulets from dark grey clouds and streaming down the car windows. The sky is always bleak here. It always looks lonely and desolate and colorless and sometimes everyone just wishes it would stop, but it never does.

A million billion trillion drops of rain hit the ground, and even so, she keeps driving.

What if the sun is shining somewhere else?

i: one

If there is such a thing as sunshine, Tori never finds it, unless she's looking at the universe on her ceiling, leftover stars and planets from when she was younger and wanted to know everything.

Where does Jupiter go, mama? Is Orion's Belt here, mom? The sun's right here, isn't it?

Her favorite constellation is Pegasus. It represents wisdom. Inspiration. But most of all, it represents fame.

And the last thing she wants is to be forgotten.

(She never has to ask where that constellation goes. She creates it right next to Pisces, where it belongs.)

v. five

"Do you ever get tired of daydreaming?" Cat asks her one day, hair the color of blood and cherries and red velvet cupcakes. Tori meets her gaze, shrugs.

"Do you?"

"No," Cat answers immediately, "But I always thought you were more realistic than me."

Tori furrows her eyebrows, words Cat leaves unsaid hanging heavily in the air, gravity about to pull them down. Words like older and tired and boring slink in and out of Tori's mind but she decides not to voice them in fear of hearing another, What's that supposed to mean!

Instead, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, asks, "Do you think the sun is ever going to shine again?"

Cat frowns.

Then mutters, "Of course," but she doesn't sound so sure of herself. Hope registers into Tori's brain. Undying. Unrelenting. Tori prays to a God she doesn't know enough about that those hopes aren't crushed.

(She doesn't like it when her best friend cries.)

iii: three

It's positively pouring when she breaks up with Beck and there's probably a deeper meaning behind that, but they were never really supposed to be together in the first place. It's just a fluke, made specifically by the universe.

(Perfect boys and perfect girls never have happy endings because it's too obvious.)

Beck stares at her for a long time, eyes shining in fluorescent lighting, color draining from his face. You'd think he was going to die from a broken heart. Tori looks at the tiles on the ground, at the constellations in the dots below her feet.

That one looks like The Big Dipper –

"Tori," he starts, reaching for her. His fingertips graze the tip of her shoulder and her whole body is on fire and –"Please don't go," he says. She pulls away from his touch and her heart settles down and the sun that used to shine in her eyes is gone, replaced with tiredness and realism and adulthood.

"It's better for both of us."

(Stop trying to grow up so fast.)

vi. six

"Hello?"

A voice crackles through the receiver, signal going in and out.

"Hello?"

Buzzing. Murmurs. Bits and pieces of words that she can't understand.

"Hello? Who is this?" Her heart is pounding, her eyes wide and looking around, the feeling of being watched setting in, "Please, tell me who you are."

Thunder booms. The phone crackles. Electric laughter.

The line goes dead.

viii. eight

"Shh," someone says, touching her shoulder, part gentle and part firm, "Settle down, sweetie. We'll help you."

She wakes up. Falls asleep again.

Fragments of thoughts swim through her mind, dislocated dreams haunt her.

"Has the sun come back out, yet?" She asks, grabbing a wrist, "It's been raining for so long…"

"It will, soon, honey," someone says, "Wait just one more moment."

"The sun will come out tomorrow," she sings, "You got to hang on until tomorrow!"

vii. seven

I think she's getting worse, a voice says in a distant galaxy.

ix. nine

"Pluto's not a planet," she tells Beck one day, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, "I need to fix my ceiling."

Beck laughs, running a hand through his hair, "What are you talking about?"

Tori blinks the stars from her eyes.

"My ceiling," she repeats, "If Pluto isn't a planet then it needs to be moved."

"It's not a planet, but it's still there," Beck reminds her, "It hasn't gone anywhere. It just doesn't have the same title."

"Asteroids ruin things." Tori doesn't look at Beck, but out the window at the rain, "Isn't that what Pluto is? An asteroid?"

"I suppose they can."

Beck doesn't answer her second question. It floats, weightless.

x. ten

"I don't want to be a star anymore."

She's crying, screaming, and someone is holding her but it doesn't feel like Beck.

"There a billions," she screams, thunder booming outside, "You don't – you don't remember which one was there the night before – no one cares. And no one can see them in all this fucking rain!"

Tori wrenches herself out of the strangers' grasp, throat dry, heart pounding. She thinks of Pegasus, how the constellations are a constant, constant, no one forgets them –

but they aren't always seen.

She sinks to her knees, chest heaving.

"It's not fair," she says as the stranger's hands touch her shoulder – without the burn, without the fire coursing through her veins – "I just want to be remembered."

ii: two

"Look at that one, right there," Beck says, reaching up and pointing to the sky, before casting his gaze to Tori, who follows his finger and looks at the stars.

"Which one?"

"Okay, do you see Pegasus?" Beck asks.

Tori nods; she sees Pegasus, galloping into the galaxies, unstoppable, important.

"The star by the tail; that one," Beck says, "The bright one."

Tori sees it, scrunching her nose, "Does it have a name?"

Beck smiles, gazing at her while she stargazes, "Yeah," he says, "It's called Tori Vega."

"You're making things up," she says.

"No," he says, pulling out the certificate, "It's yours."

xi: eleven

He's tired of coming here. The white-washed walls are boring, plain, and the only thing colorful in her room are the flowers that he brings her.

The nurse smiles at him.

"You know where she is," she says in a voice that has lived many years. Beck nods, clutching the daisies tightly in his fist as he walks down three different halls, then enters the second room on the left.

"Hey, Tori," he says, setting the flowers down next to the ones from yesterday.

"Hi, Beckett," she answers, staring out the window. The sun is shining and illuminating part of her face, making her skin glow. He wishes to touch her, to see if she's still warm, to see if she exists beyond the point of not existing, but doesn't dare.

"Still raining, huh?" Beck asks, throat constricting as she answers.

"Yes," she says solemnly, turning slightly to meet his gaze, "It always rains, here."

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fin.

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a/n: this has been a work-in-progress for who knows how long. for those who don't understand, tori basically goes insane after she and beck break up, and since it was raining, all she sees is rain. i guess. thanks for reading. please review with more than "so weird" or "i liked it"! concrit would be great.