Work Text:
Tori wakes up on her fifteenth birthday with a pair of red scissors on her pillow.
She immediately goes to Trina and asks if it’s some bizarro prank she’s trying to pull, but Trina denies it. It’s clear that Trina's telling the truth so, naturally, Tori's horrified. She has no idea what they mean, who left them there, or why she woke up right next to them.
Eventually, Tori’s dad calms her down and reminds her that, since she’s fifteen now, she’s starting to get connected to her soulmate. She can’t believe she forgot about that, but the excitement definitely overtakes any emotion she was feeling earlier. Tori loves love. She loves that soulmates exist and she loves that she has one, especially because she’s heard of people that don’t have one, and have never had one. She’s glad she isn’t in that boat and can daydream about a person who she doesn’t even know yet.
And as the year goes on, Tori does think about her soulmate every chance she gets, especially when she finds something of theirs in her room. It’s fun and exciting and it’s…borderline concerning? Mostly because by the time Tori’s sixteenth birthday comes around, she ends up finding enough of her soulmate’s scissors that she has a small collection of them in one of her desk drawers.
Scissors aren’t the only thing her soulmate has lost, but scissors are definitely the majority of what they’ve lost. There was an occasional sock, a key, a charging cable, and notes from different classes –– where the handwriting makes her believe that her soulmate is also a girl –– but scissors consistently showed up in Tori’s room, at least once every other month. She can’t help but hope her soulmate is okay, but Tori is more curious than anything because none of the scissors look used.
-
She remains curious until a few months after her sixteenth birthday, and the middle of her sophomore year when she transfers to Hollywood Arts and meets Jade West. Not only is Jade one of the prettiest girls she’s ever met — Tori would even go as far as to say Jade is the prettiest girl she’s ever met — but she’s also a person who oddly loves scissors because of The Scissoring, Tori learns. So, with the help of good ol’ common sense and context clues, Tori concludes that Jade is her soulmate. She’s certain of it and has never been more sure of anything else in her life.
Except, she actually isn’t entirely sure considering that, when she first meets Jade, Jade is dating Beck and has been for over a year. And there’s also the fact that Jade isn’t the nicest person she’s come across. It’s an awful feeling to have your soulmate seemingly hate you; Tori’s sure that’s not how a soulmate is supposed to act, so maybe she is wrong and maybe she’s projecting the small crush she’s had on Jade for a while. Plenty of people love The Scissoring and maybe the universe is throwing Tori a curveball instead of presenting her actual soulmate to her. However, because Tori is Tori, she doesn’t think that’s the case because plenty of people date other people who aren’t their soulmates, which is fine –– she’s gone out with a few people here and there herself. She’s convinced Jade and Beck are just…having fun, even if it seems a little serious.
Then, one day, Beck and Jade break up…and then they get back together with Tori’s help. She doesn’t know why she helps them get back together, especially when she’s never been more sure that Jade is her soulmate. But, Tori concludes that that’s why. They might be soulmates, but that doesn’t guarantee that they have to get together as soon as they meet. So if Jade is happy with Beck for the moment — though Tori isn’t exactly convinced that she is — it’s okay. They’ll end up together eventually.
-
During their junior year, Jade still likes to push Tori’s buttons, but there’s no cruel intentions behind her words anymore, they text frequently, and hang out more. Jade also breaks up with Beck, and it feels pretty final. Tori kind of hates that one of her first thoughts is that maybe that means her and Jade will be something soon, but she can’t help it. She thinks she’s right when Sikowitz has them blindly select roles for one of his plays and Tori ends up picking the role as Jade’s husband. Tori’s sure that’s a sign from the universe that signifies it’s coming together for the two of them, and she’s ecstatic.
Until Sikowitz tells them they have no chemistry and makes them go on a fake date at Nozu.
But then the date goes fine, Jade calls Tori pretty, Tori calls her pretty back and then…it feels like the movies, to Tori anyway. Jade’s still tough to read at times, but it’s like a jolt runs through each of them when they admit that the other is pretty and the rest of the night goes smoothly. So smoothly that Jade ends up driving Tori home and accepts Tori’s offer to go inside to run lines together, despite it being well after midnight. Because Tori is Tori, she starts talking about other stuff after about twenty minutes of rehearsal.
“Do you have a lot of your soulmate’s stuff?” she asks. She wants to put it out there without putting it too out there. Also, their friends don’t really speak much about the whole soulmate thing, so she’s curious what Jade’s take on it is.
Jade glances up at her. “We’re supposed to be running lines, Vega,” she reminds her.
“I know, but don’t you think talking about love in real life will help us translate that to the play?” Tori tries. “Sort of like method acting.”
“Tori, that’s not what method acting is,” Jade snorts. “We’re not getting married in real life so we can be better in Sikowitz’s play.”
“Well…a ton of soulmates get married and I wanna know what you think of yours based on the stuff they’ve lost,” Tori admits. “So, research based acting, I guess.”
Jade sighs and puts Tori’s copy of the script down. “I don’t think much about my soulmate,” she confesses and, okay, that sucks to hear. Jade lets out another deep sigh, almost like she can’t believe she’s admitting this, not just to Tori, but in general. “I guess…I’m kinda worried they’re gonna be disappointed when they find out it’s me that they’re stuck with.”
“What?!” Tori incredulously asks, then mentally reminds herself to dial it back. “Why would they be?”
“Because I’m kind of a bitch,” Jade answers. “I mean, you know that probably better than anyone –– I can be awful.”
Tori shrugs. “You apologized to me for the coffee thing and the black eye thing after we snuck out of the Black Box.” It wasn’t the easiest conversation, but it was extremely obvious to Tori that Jade meant it, so they moved on. “I think…you wouldn’t have a soulmate if someone would be disappointed to find out it was you. I also don’t think you’d have one if you’re as awful as you think you can be.”
“I guess,” Jade grunts, not sounding entirely convinced. But then she gives in and decides to sort of answer Tori’s initial question. “My soulmate doesn’t lose a lot of things. I thought I didn’t have one until they finally lost something, like, a month after I turned fifteen.”
“What’d they lose?” Tori curiously asks. She tries her best to remember what she lost two Augusts ago, which is honestly hard to do.
“Ten bucks that was hidden in a pack of gum,” Jade recalls with a fond eye roll accompanied by a small laugh.
Tori has to hide the look of surprise on her face. That used to be her way of saving her money until she lost it one day (and accused Trina of stealing it). “Oh.” It’s…finally happening. Kinda?
“Yeah. They lose mostly little things — earbuds, socks, chapstick, shit like that. Oh, but they did lose a pair of glasses at the beginning of this year. That actually made me feel bad,” Jade says.
“That sucks,” Tori rushes out, solely so she doesn’t blurt out the fact that she lost her glasses the first week of January. God. Jade West is her soulmate and there’s no denying it anymore. But…Jade also still recently broke up with Beck after years together, so maybe the timing isn’t right. It’s no longer a fresh break up, but it’s only been a little over a month, so she decides to not say anything yet.
“What’s the weirdest thing your soulmate’s lost?” Jade wonders.
Tori looks at her for a moment. “Scissors,” she answers. If Jade is shocked, she’s hiding it well because all she does is narrow her eyes for a brief second.
They go back to reading lines, but that only lasts about ten minutes because Tori keeps yawning, and not because she’s playing a narcoleptic astronaut. She invites Jade to sleep over because it’s one in the morning and she doesn’t want Jade to drive while she’s still tired; to her surprise, Jade agrees. Tori removes her necklace and earrings, leaving them on her nightstand, before changing into pajamas. Jade helps herself to borrow some of Tori’s pajamas without being offered any, but it’s fine.
The next morning, Tori walks Jade out to her car and when she goes back to her room, her earrings are on her nightstand, but…her necklace is gone. Her favorite necklace is gone. She looks all over her room for it because she knows she left it alongside her earrings. On Monday, she has to actively stop herself from asking Jade if she found it.
-
Sikowitz is proud of how they executed their roles in his play and tells them they made a believable husband and wife. Again, Tori has to stop herself from blurting out that of course it was believable –– they’re soulmates.
But Jade still hasn’t said anything about her necklace, so as confident as Tori is, she’s still terrified there’s even the slightest chance that she’s wrong.
-
Exactly a month after the play, Tori gets the chance to perform at the Platinum Music Awards and it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It’s supposed to be fun and cool except for the fact that it is fucking terrible.
Tori’s miserable. She hates having to be controlled by all these insanely powerful men who want to change absolutely everything about her. She hates wearing ridiculous outfits to school. She hates having to shove ravioli down a famous astronaut’s pants –– which is her bad, but she never wanted to shove ravioli down anyone’s pants. She hates random paparazzi taking pictures of her in class. Most of all, Tori absolutely despises how it’s made her friends see her. Especially Jade, who has been her harshest critic since this whole mess started. (Tori’s certain Jade’s started to see her in a different light ever since the play because they’ve been getting along great since then.)
She’s changed, but she can’t reveal why, and it’s killing her. She just wants to shout ‘you know this isn’t me’ at her friends, and especially at Jade, but she can’t. Until Beck shows up at her house and tells her he knows all about Mason Thornesmith’s game and how he’s using Tori as a chess piece. She appreciates that Beck just gets it; she doesn’t exactly appreciate it when he tries to kiss her, but it’s fine –– emotions tend to run high in intense moments.
When she shows up to school dressed like her normal self again the next day, Tori loses her spot in the Platinum Music Awards –– to Jade. It fucking sucks.
They’ve been getting along so well recently and, now, everything’s screwed up.
Tori doesn’t really blame her friends for wanting to leave her house and go watch Jade rehearse. She wants to, too, but she’s not sure if Jade wants to be around her, so Tori decides it’s best to keep her distance. Beck shows up at her house again for support, but then…he tries to kiss her again.
Tori stops him and, truthfully, herself because she finds herself leaning in as well for some reason. “Uh. Oh…you,” she awkwardly says, adding an even more awkward playful punch to his cheek.
“I’m sorry,” Beck apologizes sincerely. He creates distance between them on the couch.
“No,” Tori sighs, throwing her head back before burying her face in her hands. “I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t–– I didn’t mean to––” Beck continues.
“No, no,” Tori interrupts, “you didn’t.”
“Then why can’t we kiss?”
“‘Cause,” she weakly offers. She wants to tell him it’s because there is no longer any doubt in her mind that Jade is her soulmate, but with everything going on, she hasn’t had the chance to have that conversation with Jade yet and that definitely has to happen before she goes and tells someone else about her major discovery. Despite everything that’s happened the last week or however long it’s been since she “won” the stupid Platinum Music Awards contest, Jade West is her soulmate and, even if she wasn’t and if they lived in a universe where soulmates don’t exist, Jade’s still the only person Tori wants to kiss. Without admitting any of that, she finds herself saying, “‘Cause of Jade.”
“Jade and I broke up,” Beck explains, which, duh.
“Yeah, but kissing your friend’s ex-boyfriend––”
“Wait, wait, wait, since when are you and Jade friends?” he furrows his eyebrows. “She took your spot in the Platinum Music Awards.”
“Look, I mean, I guess Jade and I aren’t really friends friends,” Tori admits. She finds it’s actually pretty easy to not mention the soulmate thing, because, if Jade isn’t her soulmate, it’s still something Tori wouldn’t do to her. “But we’re kinda friends. I think. And kissing her ex-boyfriend? I can’t do that to a friend.”
Beck finds himself nodding, finally understanding. “I’m sorry,” he says again, still as sincere as the first time and Tori appreciates it.
On Sunday night, she finds herself backstage at the Platinum Music Awards after moping around and mustering up enough energy to go cheer on Jade with the rest of her friends. Tori sees Jade scrutinizing herself in the vanity mirror and she never thought she would ever see Jade willingly wear so much pink. But Jade is working with Mason Thornesmith, so she probably isn’t as willing as Tori initially thought.
“Wow, incredible outfit,” Tori says softly.
“I look like an idiot,” Jade replies without missing a beat.
“A pretty, pink idiot,” Tori offers with a small, almost shy, smile. “With a…thing on her head.”
“Thanks.” Jade turns around and admits, “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Well, everyone else was coming to cheer you on, so I figured I would, too,” Tori answers. “And you look way better in that than I would have.”
Jade looks down at her outfit. “This isn’t right.”
“Yeah,” Tori hesitantly agrees. “It is a little tight around your––”
“No.” Jade rolls her eyes. “Not the stupid outfit. This,” she waves her hand around. “Me. I don’t–– this is supposed to be your night. This was your big chance. So, for me to go out there and––” she cuts herself off, shaking her head.
“And?” Tori presses.
“I can’t do that to a friend,” Jade finally says and Tori can’t help but smile. “Or even to you.”
Tori can’t help but let out a small laugh. “Thanks,” she says sarcastically.
“Don’t want your head to get all big again,” Jade quips. They stare at each other awkwardly for a few moments until Jade goes back to the vanity and grabs her phone and starts tapping away at her screen.
“What are you doing?”
“Texting Cat and the guys,” Jade replies briefly. “I’m gonna change out of this stupid fucking outfit, and we’re gonna go to Nozu.”
Tori visibly panics. “What about the show?”
“What about it?” Jade huffs. “Mason has zero intention of making whoever goes out there a star. He can go out there and sing himself for all I care.”
“What if you get blackballed from the industry?” Tori still doesn’t think it’s a good idea.
“I’m too talented. I won’t be,” Jade confidently replies. “Besides, I never signed a contract. I don’t owe him shit. He probably doesn’t even remember my name.”
Tori finds Jade’s words oddly comforting, which is why she agrees to go to Nozu with Jade and everyone else. Mrs. Lee has the awards show on on the karaoke screens and it is a major disaster. The Slap, Splashface, and even major news outlets are blasting Mason Thornesmith and the joke of awards show he’s put on. Tori thinks the ‘I told you so’ look she gets from Jade is deserved. And it’s when Tori gets the look that she notices that Jade is wearing her jacket. Not only that, though –– Jade is wearing Tori’s necklace. The necklace Tori wore after their fake date at Nozu.
Since it isn’t something she wants to talk about in front of their friends, she waits until the next day at school. Jade is wearing her necklace again and it fills Tori’s stomach with every single butterfly in the world.
“Hey, can I talk to you?” she asks, looking at Jade’s eyes, then the necklace, back to her eyes.
“If you have to, sure.” Jade shrugs. Tori rolls her eyes and leads them to the janitor’s closet. “What?”
“Nice necklace,” Tori blurts out, which, okay, not the way she had planned to do it, but, whatever.
“I was wondering how long it’d take you to notice,” Jade smirks, crossing her arms. “You know, I’m surprised it worked.”
Tori scrunches her eyebrows. “What worked?”
“I’m the reason you ‘lost’ your necklace,” Jade answers like it’s obvious.
“What?!” Tori gasps. “Jade! You can’t steal your soulmate’s possessions. That’s not how this works!”
Jade rolls her eyes. “I didn’t steal anything, Vega. Relax. I just put it under your bed and it was on my nightstand when I got home the next morning.”
“Oh.” Tori blinks. “Wait, when did you know?”
“When you told me your soulmate lost scissors,” Jade replies. The bell rings and they both look bummed. This is obviously a conversation that has to happen, so Jade puts her door on the handle before walking out of the closet. “I’ll be at your house after school.”
“Why?” Tori asks. She doesn’t get an answer because Jade just smirks and begins walking to class.
-
Jade shows up after school, just like she said she would. And she has a giant cardboard box that says NOT MINE in black, permanent marker.
“Hey,” Tori greets.
“Hey,” Jade returns. She comfortably goes upstairs, into Tori’s room, and places the box on Tori’s bed. “Here’s your crap.”
Tori rolls her eyes. “How romantic of you.”
“We’re soulmates. Aren’t you supposed to accept me for all that I am or whatever?” Jade teases, but there’s something different about her — she’s a little stiffer than normal and maybe avoiding making prolonged eye contact. It dawns on Tori pretty easily what’s going on.
“You’re nervous,” she realizes. It makes sense considering she’s kind of nervous about it, too; she just didn’t expect Jade to be.
“A little,” she admits with a casual shrug.
They stay quiet for a few more minutes until Tori clears her throat and opens up her biggest desk drawer. “Well…here’s everything you’ve lost the last two-and-a-half years,” she says, motioning her hand at the drawer. “I thought all the scissors were some kind of cry for help until I met you.”
“God,” Jade snorts as she looks inside the drawer. She grabs a pair with a red handle and looks at Tori. “These were the first ones I lost,” she remembers, earning a smile from Tori. “They fell off of my locker, and the janitor swore to me he didn’t throw them away or pick them up. I always thought he was lying, until you told me the weirdest thing I’ve lost were scissors.”
“I almost showed them to you that night,” Tori shares. “But you still hadn’t been single for that long, so I decided not to.”
Jade looks through the drawer and finds a few more things but, yeah, the scissors are definitely in there in excess. She never realized how many of them she’s lost until she’s looking at all of them through Tori’s drawer. Eventually, she closes the drawer and starts looking through the box she brought before presenting an old, empty pack of gum to Tori. “Here’s your ten bucks.”
“You kept it?” Tori laughs while sitting on her bed, next to the box.
“Well, yeah, I would’ve felt like I was stealing from you otherwise,” Jade chuckles. “Besides, you kept the money I lost, too –– all six dollars.”
Tori smiles at her before rummaging through the box again and finding the glasses she lost in January. “Now I have a backup pair,” she jokes. She’s not surprised at how many tubes of unfinished chapstick she’s lost –– she still has yet to finish one –– and there’s an embarrassing amount of socks in there. But then something at the very bottom of the box catches her eye; it’s a bracelet she made when she was seven, when she went to her first science cap. A beaded bracelet that says her name. She lost it before she transferred to Hollywood Arts when she rearranged her room setup. “Wait. You…knew my name this whole time?”
“No,” Jade says. Tori gives her a strange look in return, like she doesn’t believe her. Jade hesitates for a brief second. “I mean, yes, when you first lost it. I sort of obsessed over the fact that I knew your name before I even knew who you were,” she confesses. “Made the whole soulmate thing more real, I guess. But I was with Beck and he noticed I was acting off, I guess? I don’t know. I put it in the box and forgot about it after that. Your name sounded familiar when we met, but I couldn’t remember why. I forgot I even had that bracelet until right before I came over.”
“Oh.” Tori nods. She finds it oddly sweet that Jade was, in her own words, sort of obsessed with her name. “I was always a little bummed that you never lost anything that had your name on it.”
Jade can’t hold back the small laugh and she shakes her head. “So…when did you know we were, y’know, soulmates or whatever?”
“Since I saw your locker and found out you liked The Scissoring.”
“Jesus, Tori,” Jade lets out an exasperated sigh. “And I thought knowing for a month was a long time. You’ve known basically since we met.”
Tori blushes and shrugs, almost embarrassed. “I know. But you were with Beck.”
“Exactly. I was with Beck and you just let me be with him even when you knew we’re soulmates?” Jade is amused, and not mad, so Tori lets out a shy giggle. “Why?”
“We’re soulmates,” Tori reiterates. “We’re ending up together anyway, so I was willing to wait it out…as lame as that is.”
Jade chuckles and pushes the box back further up the bed so she can sit next to Tori. Their knees are touching and Jade turns to her. “Well, sorry to keep you waiting.” It sounds sincere and Tori just smiles at her.
“I’m a patient person,” Tori quips. And then, holy shit, Jade is starting to lean in. And then, holy shit, they’re kissing.
“Worth the wait?” Jade murmurs once she pulls back.
Tori eagerly nods, not caring how lame she probably looks. “Definitely.”