Disclaimer: Victorious is not mine, nor are any of the letters.

"Tori-" Cat moans your name. It's an ache of a sound.

And it means nothing to you.

The first time, the second time. The tenth time. It meant something then. The letters of your name littered her lips, and together they spelled 'victory'. Each time your name got a little louder in her lungs, a little deafer in your ears. You barely hear it at all anymore. It's like you're just watching a silent film now, the only sound the click and clatter of the film running through the reel. You have to watch her lips just to know what she's saying. She's just a subtitle at the bottom of your shuddering frame.

Her body is slight under you, all softness and warm, but you know her bones are sharp and cold under the skin. She hides herself so well. She's full of jagged edges beneath her silken sheet of skin. You remember when her body was a work of art to you. One you were almost too afraid to touch for fear of smudging it, smearing the wet clay of her anatomy. But she's a statue that hardened before you ever even came along. She's withstood harder touches than yours. These days, you try to leave a mark.

Your lips whisper over Cat's collarbone, breath bleeding hot into her skin. With a huff, you could blow right through her, send her crashing down. You know you could. You could tear her apart as surely as she tore you. You've worked with careful fingers, you've weaved a web she's wandered into, and the only thing left for you to do is sink your fangs into her twitching form.

You plant a kiss over the raised ridge of bone, instead. Her fingers are trying so hard to please you, Cat's forearm shivering against your stomach, cables of muscles twanging with her movements. Your own hand is stroking her slowly, motions measured. Mechanical. You know the right ratios to give her. She's a recipe that you've memorised, it's just a matter of letting her boil until she bubbles over. This is your revenge, and it's served ice cold.

You're not a fish anymore, not some gaping guppy, Cat's metal claws sunk into your lips. That was her game. Go fish. It's one you've refused to play anymore, sick and tired of losing, losing everything. You've set up the stakes so you can win this one, but you're starting to realise there's no thrill in playing a game you can't lose at. You wonder where Cat got all her satisfaction from, all her amusement. But maybe that little smile of hers meant something else entirely. Maybe she's been playing to lose all along. Or maybe her prize was just of a different kind. Your victory doesn't excite you like it should. Her stumbling hands and hesitant pleas. 'Can I touch you?'. They should warm you up, more than the hotness of her mouth, more than the wet heat between her legs ever did. But all the hooks she sank in you left you a sieve once you tore them out. You can't keep anything in there. Your heart is empty, and you don't know how to patch the leaks.

Your hips jerk forward into Cat's hand, a soft grunt muffled by Cat's tan skin. She smells like vanilla. A perfume you told her to wear, just to see if she'd do it, if she'd bow and bend under a meaningless demand. She'd done it with a smile, sprayed it on her wrists, her throat, and you'd smiled and tried to pretend it made her more appealing to you. The vanilla is cloying now, harsh and artificial. You'd rather the smell of her, the scent you found so intoxicating when being with her hurt in such a pleasant way. The animal scent of her skin, of blood and warmth and sweat and just HER. All you can smell now is that chemical vanilla, mixed with your own sweat. She smells like you.

Cat stiffens underneath you, subtly. A soft shudder, a small roll of her hips. It's not the grasping passion with which you used to make her come. There's no passion at all. Not on your part. It was appalling how little effort it took. How little you'd had to do to get on even ground with her. You hadn't even realised you'd just been kneeling all along. All you had to do was stand, spine straight. Your hand, that even now so deftly twists inside her, had coaxed her forward. Dropped crumbs of fantasy, of promises you never could keep when you cared. A curl of the finger is all it ever took with Cat. You'd just had to learn to curl it the right way.

Your name splits her lips again. A caress, not a curse. She doesn't love you. You might be standing now, but your even ground is a hill. Cat will never sink as low as you. She knows what you're trying to do. You might have made a new game, but you've copied from her rules. It makes it even more infuriating, that she knows what you're doing and she's falling for it anyway, and it was all too easy. You've wrapped your web around her, thick and tight, and it's kept you from seeing what's really under there. What she really is. Because if she's playing the loser willingly, maybe she's not stuck to your web at all. Maybe she's just plucking the strings and sending you scuttling, searching for her. You spend your life waiting for her. Maybe things haven't changed as much as you thought.

Your victory is falling apart at your feet, and your toes curl with it as you come. You don't say her name. You don't need to. Your teeth imprint it into her flesh, your hips jump against her with the cadence of it. She doesn't love you, and you don't love her, so what are you doing? Why are you still here, still enraptured in her? What point are you trying to prove? That you can be just as cold as her? You're getting frostbite just from trying.

You roll off her, sweat sticking your skin together slickly. Cat shifts to face you, a hand playing over your shoulder, tickling the skin, and it's a casual touch that would've meant so much to you before. A small sign of regard, of care. Maybe all it is now is the greeting of an equal. She leans forward, a soft kiss pressed on your cheek. There's a smile in them that sears your skin, and you can't stop the flex in your fingertips where they touch over her back.

You were a spider to get her. You grew eyes to watch her, to see every little change in her. You grew more limbs to touch her, to stroke her. You weaved your web with the utmost skill, and you steered her into it, gently, gently. You've read in biology, seen in a video that sent your spine crawling, that there are spiders who clad themselves in camouflage. Who look like the very prey they hunt, who look harmless until their fangs come out. That's what you tried to be, some harmless hunter. And when she was firmly tangled in your trap, you'd rip off your mask, your hard shell of armour, and you'd let her see what a husk you really are now. How there's nothing left underneath your exoskeleton. The only thing that fills you now is venom. But if you're a spider in this game, then Cat's a wasp. There are no assurances she'll be the one tied up and waiting. One stab where your heart used to be, and she'll be the victor. It all depends on whose poison is more potent.

"I miss you, Tori."

Your roaming gaze snaps onto her face, brow crinkling. "Miss what?"

"You." A tiny smile perches on Cat's pink lips, syllable dropping sweetly. "You're not here."

Your spittle sticks in your throat, tripped up by a hard lump. She's right, you're not here. Your lights are on but you're not home. You're not the girl who trembled just to touch Cat. Who'd give in to every whispered 'touch me'. You're not your heart, you're what's left over, and you thought that's what she wanted. No. No, you don't care what she wanted. That's not why you numbed yourself. You didn't do it so you could stand to be with her, you did it because you could. You had to. Not for her, but for yourself.

Not for her.

What Cat wants is your heart, and there was a time when even knowing she wanted anything from you but your mouth and your fingers would've sent you shivering. Now she wants something that's gone. She wants a part of you, a part of your past, and it's not one you made her want. She misses the softer side of you, the weak side she loved to flex her claws in. Isn't that what you wanted? To make her care? Shouldn't that make you happy?

All it does is make you tired.

"I'm here, Cat." The words are murmured, hummed over the back of your tongue, and you'd wish you'd rolled them around your mouth first to take off those raw, rough edges that coat them.

Her eyes narrow slightly, dark and unreadable, flicking over you with a light touch. They scrape your skin, like they're searching for something hidden underneath. Scratching away the dust to see what glitters beneath, but all she'll find is blood and bone. She purses her lips, fingertips coming to touch over your jawline, tilting your chin up. "You are, aren't you?" Her voice is quietly curious. Maybe she found something buried in you after all. Some relic of an arrowhead or crumbling fossil. A memory of a time when you were you.

You always thought it was about the fucking. That's all you ever do with her. At school, you're one word sentences. Even less when you're together. You speak sign language with her, and it's a single word repeated, curled inside her, tapped out until she shivers with the meaning.

Cat leans forward suddenly, her lips hovering over yours, almost touching, almost. She keeps them there, her exhale your inhale, and after a time of waiting, your eyes move from her lips upwards. A touch on your cheek closes them; almost a flinch. She's never done this before. Talked about when you were a fish with shining scales. Maybe she's waiting for you to close the gap, like you always did before, shaking with anticipation and need. There's a whisper in her breath as she kisses you finally. For a moment you think it's all in your head, so wound up from expecting her lips that you imagined them, so light is her caress. Kisses with her have always been a fight, a struggle. Clashing lips and cringing teeth and coercive tongues. Your kisses are passion, which is probably why you can't remember the last real one. You've been lacking in feeling for a long time. But this isn't fire on your lips, it's water, cool and melting. The both of you are ice, but there's warmth somewhere, slowly eroding you. This isn't the kiss of someone who doesn't care. It's far too intimate, and slow, and choking. She's never kissed you like this before. She's kissing you like you're a breath she needs to take, fresh air after a smoke-filled room. She's kissing you liked you used to dream of, in your wildest and most pathetic fantasies. She's giving you what wanted, back when it was hurt and whole. You make a soft sound, a creak of splitting ice, and this one little kiss feels better than her fingers twisting inside you ever did. This isn't a motion, this is an emotion. Water's running between you, turning your breath to liquid, wet gasps of breath as she continues, soft and light and persistent. And that dribble of cold water crawls over your tongue, drips down the back of your throat, until it splashes onto your frozen sepulcher of a heart, walls cracked and crumbled. A single drop, hot with feeling, sears into the dessicated muscle.

There's a dull beat.

A/N: For nutellafourever, the spur that kicked me into finally writing a sequel.

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