Technicolor
for Velveteenstars, 5th place winner of my children of time game :)
it's the last of my oneshot prizes, hopefully best for last? she requested some beck/cat fluff, and i really tried, i promise. it's just, i think i'm fluff-impaired. this was supposed to be a cutesy 'and they lived happily ever after' story. didn't exactly turn out that way. the angst kind of took over and it became a beautiful tragedy, but there's still a happy ending in there, if you close one eye and squint with the other.
this was inspired by "october" by fm static and ariana grande's cover of "rolling in the deep". this is written in the style of 1-800-assassins where it alternates between mainstory and backstory. enjoy.
She's so beautiful, he can hardly breathe.
Her hair is a lively indigo now. She's sophisticated and graceful and famous. It's like he doesn't know her anymore.
Everyone here is enamored with her, and why wouldn't they be, she's the Cat Valentine after all.
But there was a time when she wasn't the Cat Valentine, just simple his Cat Valentine.
He had every chance to fall in love with her but he pushed her away instead, and now he's swimming in regret and everything is completely, wholly, without a doubt, his fault.
/
For first grade, Mrs. Cooper arranged all her students to sit alphabetically by first name, so André Harris, Beckett Oliver, Catarina Valentine, and Cole Percy were all seated at the same table. They had to do partner work a lot in that class, and every time, the three boys played "not it" to see who had to work with Cat. Because Cat was the only girl and girls have cooties and are gross and stuff.
Somehow, Beck always ended up being "it." He'd accuse André and Cole of cheating, but how exactly do you cheat at "not it"?
But honestly, he didn't mind working with Cat so much. She always let him use her scented markers and don't tell anyone, but he liked it when she wore her hair in braided piggy tails. Her hair was still the natural brown back then.
Once, she told him that she liked his drawing. Mrs. Campbell had frowned and told him that grass was supposed to be green, not orange, but Cat said she liked it. Then she showed him her drawing. She had colored her grass purple. He smiled and she smiled back.
During snack time, he gave her half his cookie when no one was looking. And that was that.
/
"Oh hey, Beck!"
He snaps out of his reverie to see Tori and André walk up to him.
"Hello," he greets his friends politely (and it's funny because you're never polite to your friends so are they his friends at all?) "Thanks for organizing this reunion, Tori."
Tori beams, bright as ever. "It was no problem. Can you believe it's been ten years since graduation already?"
Ten years. It's a big slap in the face.
All his ex-classmates, they're successful actors or dancers or directors now. Half of them are married. Some with kids. All moving up in life.
It seems like he's the only one who's here alone, perhaps worse off than he was ten years ago.
"Have you talked to Cat yet?" André asks.
Beck shakes his head. Ten years, and he hasn't talked to Cat yet.
/
In the summer before fourth grade, Cat and her family traveled to Ghana. Her parents were part of a charity program, helping impoverished third-world countries and Cat and her brother tagged along, helping brighten someone's day one smile at a time.
She sent Beck a postcard, wishing he was there.
When Cat returned in time for school, she wore African print skirts and woven bracelets and a patched-fabric bookbag and everyone made fun of her for dressing so differently.
But she just kept her chin raised, and didn't care.
Beck thought she was kind of amazing, because of that.
/
Tori and André walk off to the podium to announce some high school reunion festivities they've cooked up, probably. Leaving Beck alone, and well within twenty feet of a certain violet-haired goddess.
He finds himself drifting towards her, almost instinctively. Like gravity.
She is wearing a simple, white eyelet dress; it's so subtle, and yet so prominent. She always stands out.
"Cat." He exhales her name and for a second, he's convinced she didn't hear.
She looks up at him, though, right before he's about to say her name again. Her eyes widen in surprise briefly before a soft smile graces her lips. "Beck."
They stand there, far enough apart to be considered strangers, a thousand words left unsaid. He hates this.
"Your hair," he says, "it's practically blue now."
"Yeah." She nods and the conversation dies once more.
He remembers a time when her hair was red, when she laughed for the world, when her heart was on her sleeve.
When summer was enough.
/
She called him one Saturday in seventh grade with a dilemma. Should she dye her hair red or blue?
He answered red, because she had too warm of a personality to have blue hair.
She agreed, but what shade of red should she get? There were oh so many hues of scarlet and crimson to choose from…So she decided to start with pure red, and every time she re-dyed her hair afterwards, she would add a little blue into the mix. That way, she would cover red, blue, and absolutely every shade of purple in between.
At thirteen, she'll start with rose red hair and at twenty-nine, she'll end up with cerulean blue hair. It was ingenious.
She invited him over and they sat on her bathroom tiles all afternoon, waiting for the red dye to sink into her hair.
The kids at school would probably tease her more and call her a red-haired freak, but Beck didn't say anything. Is it horrible that he kind of wanted Cat to be bullied? He didn't want her to be hurt, obviously. But if everyone picks on her, she won't make new friends. She would only have him.
And he wanted her all to himself.
But lo and behold, when they walked into school on Monday morning, suddenly everyone loved Cat. Cat, pretty Cat, and her pretty red hair. Cat, Cat, Cat, pretty, pretty, pretty.
She changed her hair and her popularity skyrocketed and no one called her a freak anymore. She changed her hair and everyone wanted to be her friend. She changed her hair and now she was so pretty.
Fools.
She was always this pretty. It's just now, Beck wasn't the only one who noticed anymore. Now he had to share.
/
"Congrats on your new movie," Beck says. "You were great."
She nods. "Thanks."
The conversation is unmistakably one-sided, but Beck will do everything in his power to keep it going, say anything, anything at all. Silence is too deafening. "I thought you moved to New York."
"I did."
"But you're back."
"No. I promised Tori I would come back for the high school reunion," she answers. "I'm only here for one night, and then I fly back to New York."
One night. She's here for one night only, never to be back again.
He has to tell her. He has to tell her now. Maybe he was too pathetic to tell her back then, but he would never live with himself if he let this opportunity go, if he let her go, a second time.
He takes a step closer to her.
/
This was the part where Jade West entered the picture.
Jade was bitter, dark, sarcastic, insubordinate, and rude. Everything Cat wasn't. So of course the two of them became best friends.
It was everything Beck was afraid of about high school, that Cat would get tired of him and find someone else more fascinating. He was being replaced as her best friend. Naturally, he despised Jade in the beginning.
But then he and Jade got lead roles in the show. And then he realized she was kind of really cool. And then he didn't hate her anymore.
When he asked Cat for advice on how he should ask Jade out on a date, there was a split second where Cat looked absolutely devastated. Beck can pretend he didn't notice, but he knew he did. Technically, he could have still been oblivious to Cat's feelings for him, since it would be another three years before she confessed anything. But the look on her face confirmed everything. He knew. He always knew.
He knew Cat had been in love with him since the first grade, yet he asked Jade out anyway.
/
The crowd of old classmates cheers. Tori and Andre are presenting some awards, apparently. Beck isn't exactly sure since he spent the past few minutes trying find the Cat he once knew inside this cold stranger beside him.
He takes another step towards her. She stares out in front of her, unmoving.
"And the winner for 'most likely to still be best friends' goes to," Tori announces. "Beck Oliver and Cat Valentine!"
He nearly chokes on the irony.
But the crowd is whooping and the spotlight finds the two of them, hiding in the back, all degrees of awkward. Sheepishly, he sticks out his elbow for her to grab his arm. Her fingers wrap around his arm, barely touching the sleeve of his shirt, like she's afraid to hold him.
They walk up to the podium with plastered smiles, acting the part of bff's. It's easier than he thought, and he'd like to say it's not because they're both really talented actors, but because once upon a time, they were indeed bff's.
Andre hands them the award and gives Beck a meaningful look in the eyes. Cat laughs and it sounds hollow.
/
Andre's party at Kenan's house was all fun and games until someone snuck in the liquor. And Beck just knew that giving alcohol to Cat was not a good idea at all.
He left Jade with Tori and the iCarly gang, laughing and hiccupping together. He found Cat stumbling down the hallways, a plastic red cup in one hand. She tripped over her own feet and Beck caught her just in time.
She giggled, trying to blow her hair away from her face. She only succeeded in spitting in Beck's face.
After he set her to her feet again, she clung onto his arm and told him that she'd re-dyed her hair, can he tell?
He nodded and half-carried her back out into the living room.
Drunken with delight, she twirled her fusia hair, saying how she was almost, nearly, into the purple colors now. It's been four years, after all.
Then she lifted her head to whisper into his ear, her intoxicated breath tickling his skin. She had made a wish, she told him, that she would be married to him by the time her hair gets to blue.
/
That was the last award presented, so the music resumes and people start to fill the dance floor. Caught standing awkwardly in the midst of it all, Beck and Cat begin dancing too, just to go with the flow.
His arms wind around her waist, hers around his neck, but somehow there's still a huge gap between their bodies.
To hell with this, he figures, and he pulls her body up against his.
"I missed you," he whispers, holding her closer.
She rests her head against his heart, but he notes that she doesn't say it back. It was implied, maybe?
/
But, I love you.
It was the final days of high school summer and Beck and Cat were arguing over practically nothing at all and they were shouting at each other and at the world—shouting, shouting, shouting, tension, tension, tension—when those four words just blurted out of Cat's mouth.
Her eyes widened and she clamped her mouth shut before running out of his RV. He's too stunned to move. By the time he snapped out of it and chased after her, she was already a block away, her magenta hair billowing out behind her.
If he tried, he could have caught up to her. But he didn't.
/
The reunion is over and Beck offers to drive Cat to her hotel.
There's a swarm of paparazzi by the front door; obviously someone tipped them off that Cat Valentine was staying there.
Cat groans and sinks down further in the passenger seat, fumbling around Beck's clustered dashboard for anything to disguise herself.
She puts on his aviator sunglasses and his USC hoodie from the backseat. He helps her hide her hair in the hood and she removes her heels, opting to go barefoot.
"Come with me," she says, and he didn't need to be asked twice.
They casually stroll into the hotel lobby, with Beck subtly shielding Cat from view. Those paparazzi are duped so hard. The elevator dings as it opens and they step in.
It occurs to him that maybe he shouldn't follow her up to her hotel room, but she is still wearing his sunglasses and hoodie, so he has a viable excuse.
He silently walks behind her and after she unlocks her door, she holds it open for him, so it's not like he isn't welcomed or anything. The room is tidy and untouched, with one small suitcase in the corner. She wasn't lying, she really isn't staying for long.
She takes off the sunglasses and fumbles a bit to take off the hoodie. It messes her hair, so he takes the liberty to fix the stray strands himself.
Toying with her smooth, indigo hair, an intimate, drunken confession from years ago comes to mind again.
"Hey Cat?" he asks, threading his hand into her hair and gently tilting her head up to face him.
"Hmm?" Their faces are a marginal distance apart and her brown doe eyes are focused right on his lips.
Here goes...
"Do you still want to marry me?"
She's baffled and begins to ask him how in the world he knew about that, but he's already kissing, kissing, kissing her senseless.
/
In the end, it was simple.
He had to choose between Cat and Jade, the best friend and the girlfriend, the sunshine and the rain, the soul mate and the lover.
In the end, he chose Jade.
In the end, he chose wrong.
/
"Beck," she says, pulling herself away from him. "I can't."
"Why not? Marry me."
She sighs, like a mother to a pestering child. "Because we're not kids anymore. It was just a stupid wish, I was thirteen years old. It's different now. I'm leaving tomorrow and I have a career and I don't have time to play games with you."
He realizes right then that he was mistaken. As Cat's hair got bluer, she didn't get colder. She got older.
She outgrew him, and he now doesn't have a chance.
"I'm sorry." She puts her hand on his chest. There's finality in that action, a farewell, a sense of closure.
"I loved you once, Beck Oliver. I loved you with all my heart."
/
He leaves and they live out their separate lives, what they once had now just a fading memory. And all the while, he knows that if he only had the chance to do it over again, he'd do it right this time.
/ /
Years later, Mrs. Simon arranges her first grade class to sit alphabetically by first name, so Hugo Oliver and Ivy Valentine sit at the same table. She wears her brown hair in braided pigtails and lets him use her scented markers and together, they color grass in shades of red and blue.
She's so beautiful, he can hardly breathe.