Until I Feel Nothing

Notes: I'd like to dedicate this to Lara because she needs her fix of Beck/Tori fanfic and I'm more than happy to contribute to this cause.

Warnings: Alternate universe, overall themes of (mild) depression.

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think nothing of mistakes that i've made
all around change that i can't take
the way i left you hanging every time

"i run empty" by tegan and sara

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"I didn't even know trains were still a viable means of transportation." A man sits across from her without permission, shucking his coat and dropping it in the seat next to him, setting his hat on top of it and fluffing his hair, tips of it dragging at his shoulders. "I googled 'inconspicuous ways to run away' and someone wrote 'train' and I figured it was worth a shot." If he wasn't staring directly at her, Tori could possibly pretend that he was merely talking to himself. But. "Think anyone is going to follow us?" He goes on to ask, now trifling through his duffel bag and pulling out a book - Pride and Prejudice.

Tori snorts.

"What?" He asks. There's a smile tugging at the corners of his lips that he probably doesn't intend for her to catch, but she does. "Are you not running away?" He cocks his head and his brow simultaneously, like a character straight from a novel.

"Maybe I am," Tori says coyly, tilting her head to look out the window, "but I'm laughing because you picked quite a book to run away with."

"This book is a classic," he guffaws, "Jane Austen is a literary genius."

"Maybe where you're from," Tori responds, perhaps only to be difficult.

"Maybe where you're going," he rebuts.

"Who says I'm going anywhere?" She asks, raising a brow, "Maybe I'll just ride this train until it derails, goes right off the tracks." It's a little morbid, she guesses, but she's also a little sad, so it's alright.

"If you go like that, I hope Jane Austen gives you a good kick in the ass."

Tori laughs brightly at that, loud in the otherwise empty train.

His smile rolls over his lips, one side to the other, and then fades into an expression that is almost too serious. "You're sad, aren't you?" He asks, "It seems the saddest people like my jokes the most."

"I'm Tori," Tori says in lieu of an explanation, "I'm running away from my sadness."

"I'm Beck," he replies, holding out his hand for her to take, "I'm running away from my girlfriend."

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"Where are you getting off?" Tori asks him after they've been there another fifteen minutes, talking sometimes, Tori turning to look out of the window and Beck reading a page or two when there is a lull in the conversation.

Beck shrugs his shoulders. "I guess I'll get off with you." There's a double meaning, there. They both hear it but Beck is the one to bring it to light, "If we could find somewhere more private, that is."

"What's more private than an empty train?" Tori asks, unable to keep herself from smiling.

"I pegged you wrong, Tori," Beck says, brows climbing upwards, "I thought you'd be a prude."

Tori looks at him solemnly, "That was before the accident."

She manages to keep a straight face for about five seconds before cracking up, Beck following suit.

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Thirty more minutes, and Beck is sitting next to her, discreetly showing her how to roll a blunt.

"You're a nutcase," she tells him, laughing despite herself.

"Yeah? My girlfriend taught me how to do this."

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Beck's hands are calloused, rough on Tori's skin.

"Do you play guitar?" Tori asks after he finishes tracing letters into her palm.

"Wrong," Beck replies, shaking his head, "I wrote, 'the animals in the zoo broke free.'"

Tori giggles despite herself, pulling her hand away from his. "I wasn't guessing. I was asking a question."

"Mm, yeah, I play." Beck cards his fingers through his hair, mussing it. "I've only played for a few years, though. Mostly acoustic bullshit, at that."

"I'd like to hear it sometime," Tori tells him.

"No you don't," Beck says seriously, "you definitely do not want to hear me play guitar. I morph into an insufferable douchecanoe that plays 'Wonderwall' at parties."

Tori rolls her eyes fondly, shaking her head and fighting a smile. "At least you can do something," she tells him.

Beck stares at her for a long moment before asking, "What can you do, Tori?"

Tori shrugs her shoulders. "I can roll a blunt, now, thanks to you."

Beck smiles and it doesn't reach his eyes.

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"I have a bad habit of trying to save people," Beck tells her after an hour. They've switched seats, so now he's next to the window, watching the scenery fly by, "that's why my girlfriend and I - well, ex-girlfriend - got together. Because she was sad and I wanted to make it better."

Tori nods, staring down at her hands clasped in her lap.

"I couldn't fix her in the end, so I just." Beck takes a breath, and for a moment Tori isn't sure if he's going to finish that thought, but he does, "I left. Ran away like a giant pussy and made sure wouldn't find me."

Tori thinks about this for a moment, relays the admission over a few times in her head.

"Do you think she's happier? Do you think that - she'll be happier?" Tori asks.

Beck smiles to himself, albeit sadly. "What do you think?"

Tori blinks. "I don't know. I've never met her."

Beck nods in agreement, like Tori's said something he hadn't already known. "I want to believe she'll be happy eventually. But, you know - some people can't get away from their sadness, no matter how far they run."

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"Are you sad, Beck?"

"Nah," he says, "I'm scared."

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An hour and a half into the ride, Beck kisses Tori just at the corner of her mouth. Her lips tip upwards like they can't help themselves.

"What was that for?" She asks, studying him.

Beck shrugs, looking pleased with himself. "Just checking."

Tori cocks her head, confused. "Checking?"

"I'm glad you're running away," he says instead of answering her question, "makes me feel less alone."

Tori's lips quirk up a little bit more. "I'm just glad I'm not the only loon that took a train."

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"How far are you going to go?" Beck asks after two hours, "What are you going to do?"

"I told you, Beck," Tori says, "I'm going to stay on the train."

Beck shakes his head. "No, you're not. Not if I can help it."

"I don't even know where this is going," Tori admits, laughing to herself. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and shakes her head, "Where is this train going?"

"Far enough," Beck says, "that maybe you'll want to get off of it."

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At two hours and fifteen minutes, the train rolls to a stop and no one gets off. The conductor tells them that there are two more stops to go.

"Long train ride," Tori muses.

"You'll get bored eventually," Beck tells her, sure, "no one would stay on a train forever."

Tori gives him a look. "Is that a challenge?"

"Dunno," Beck says, smile wry, "how often do you lose?"

"Enough," Tori says.

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Tori looks at herself in the mirror of the bathroom, takes in her tired eyes and the uncut ends of her hair and the grayish color of her tanned skin. She wonders if Beck thinks she's beautiful, or maybe if he thinks she was once beautiful. Tori doesn't feel beautiful anymore. She only feels sad.

She plasters a smile on her face, manufactures one that looks almost real.

There is a knock on the door. The wind is knocked out of her.

"It's unlocked," she says once she regains her breath, settles her heart. Beck steps inside, shuts the door behind him and leans against it, watching her. "Hello," she says, looking at him in the mirror.

"Hey," he replies, smooth and easy like the lull of the train on the tracks, "whatcha doing?"

Tori gives him a wry smile. "I could've been doing any number of things. Peeing, taking a dump. Masturbating."

Beck laughs and the sound borders on too loud in the small space. "Yeah?" He says, "What can you do with two people?"

Tori cocks a brow at him in the mirror, then turns to face him directly. "Do you want something?" She asks.

"Well, we did talk about getting off together," Beck says, wiggling his eyebrows in a completely ridiculous way, one that is almost endearing.

"Do you think I'm easy?" Tori asks, but she's already crowding his space, pressing him against the wall.

"I think you're sad," Beck says again, but kisses her nonetheless, presses his fingers underneath the hem of her jeans.

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The train stops again forty minutes later, but Tori is pretending to be asleep, curled into Beck's side with her head on his shoulder and her legs thrown over his lap. He's going back and forth between staring at her and reading Pride and Prejudice.

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"You're getting it everywhere," Tori tells him, unable to stop giggling.

"Shush. I'm a boy. I've never done this before."

"Gender stereotyping isn't cool anymore," Tori says, sticking out her tongue when he purposefully swipes nail polish over the back of her hand, "wasteful," she tuts, shaking her head but grinning nonetheless.

"Purple suits you," he tells her once her right hand is done. The work is sloppy, the polish not only on her nails but everywhere else, and it's going to take a while to dry because the droplets are thick, but he looks pleased with himself, "I think you should always wear purple."

"I think we should paint yours, next," Tori says, and she's joking, halfway, but Beck shrugs like he's up for anything at all.

"Okay," he says.

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Tori paints his nails blue, and when she's done, he asks her to do his toes, as well.

"Ah," he says when she's done, stretched out across the row of seats with his feet on her thighs, "I've never felt so lovely. Tell me, Tor, do I look pretty?"

Tori nods, laughing, "The prettiest and the loveliest boy I've ever met," she tells him.

Beck makes a vague noise of agreement, propping himself up with one elbow. He reaches for her with his available hand, runs a painted finger over her cheekbones, over her jaw, lifts her chin with it. He doesn't say anything, but Tori knows what he means.

"Yeah," she says, and he kisses her like he promised.

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"One more stop," Beck says, sitting across from her now, using her propped up suitcase to play cards on, "do you have any threes?"

"Go fish," Tori says, humming under her breath as Beck reaches for a card to add to his hand, "do you have any kings?"

He hands her a king wordlessly, and she plucks the other from her own grasp and lies it in the seat beside her.

"Do you have any sevens?" She asks, and Beck hands her another card, "fives?" she asks as she places the pair of sevens in her stack.

"No. Go fish," Beck says. Tori draws a five. Beck says, "lucky."

Tori shrugs, smiles. "Maybe a little. It's your turn."

"Do you have any plans," Beck starts, "for when you get off the train?"

Tori pretends to mull over this. "Why?" She eventually asks, because sadness does not quell curiosity.

"I'd just like to be a part of them, s'all."

Tori nods, understanding, and says, "We'll see."

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"What happens when you can't save someone?" Tori asks, looking up from the book he let her borrow, "What happens when someone doesn't want to be saved?"

"Do you not want that?" Beck asks instead of answering.

Tori shakes her head, then thinks better of it. "I don't know what I want," she says.

"That's normal," Beck tells her, nodding to himself.

"This book is awful," Tori says, handing Pride and Prejudice back to him.

"That is not normal."

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The conductor comes over the intercom, informs them that their final stop will be in thirty minutes.

Tori takes five for herself, picks dried nail polish from her skin, combs her fingers through her hair, taps her foot a few times. Beck leaves her be, reads for a little while and spends a part of the time simply watching her.

Tori gives him a look and he makes a point to keep his eyes trained on the page afterwards.

"What's your favorite part of that book?" Tori asks after her five minutes.

"The part when Elizabeth figures out what she wants."

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When they have ten minutes left on the train, Tori begins to cry.

"I can't decide," she says, curled in on herself with her forehead resting on her knees, "I don't know how to run away from this. I don't know where to go or what to do or who to see."

Beck pushes himself off of his seat and kneels in front of her, fingertips dusting over her converse. "It's okay," he tells her, "it's okay, it's alright, you're going to be okay," he says over and over again, maybe hoping that if he says it enough, she'll agree.

"What are you going to do if I'm still sad when we get off?" She asks in a whisper, lifting her eyes to meet his, "Are you going to run away from me, too?"

Beck shakes his head, "I'm not going to run away unless you get sadder," he tells her, and that's all it takes for Tori to understand.

"That's a bad habit, Beck," she tells him with a watery smile. He looks confused for a moment, but she elaborates, "saving people. You're going to lose more than you gain."

Beck's lips turn upwards, "I don't mind."

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When the train comes to its final stop, Beck and Tori gather their things and exit onto the platform.

"I feel like I've left something," Tori says, patting her pockets, checking the zips in her bags, looking through her purse, "but I don't think anything is missing."

"Whatever it was," Beck says, "you probably won't need it."