Author's Note: I know I haven't updated my PowerPuff Girl's fic (More) in quite sometime, but this has been floating around my head and I've been so busy with work and school and stuff. Anyway, read and enjoy and stop by some of my other stuff if you can/want to. :3

Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious, Joy Division, or the idea that you can never really 'have' someone.

The End of the End
or
the days that should've ended Beck&Jade but don't

You are Jade West.

But just barely.

The star tattoo on your forearm was the first of many, making you the human journal, the living canvas, you were meant to be.

The bottles of beer and packs of Marlboro reds and the empty refrigerator aren't really a way to live, but you were gonna live however you wanted anyway.

Curled up on the chair next to the window, clad in a worn out white tank top and plain black panties, you let bitter tobacco into your lungs and then blow smoke rings out of your lips just because you can.

"Those things will kill you."

You turn your head and there he is, messy disheveled black hair falling into his eyes and his body wrapped in wrinkled blue sheets.

"Not before you do," you reply, almost smirking.

He sighs and turns onto his back, feeling for his pack of cigarettes and lighter on the nightstand. He lights it between his lips, and spreads his arms out.

Then you see it. The small block of letters under his heart, on his ribs. His first tattoo, but definitely not his only, definitely not his last.

Love will tear us apart.

You didn't take him for a Joy Division fan at first, but after seeing his extensive collection of vinyls even though he had no record player, you begrudgingly admitted that he might actually like them.

And the irony of the tattoo never fails to amuse you.

He stares at you, with your dark eye makeup smudged around your bright blue eyes and your lips covered in park plum. You must look like hell, but you realize you don't care what you look like around Beck.

You haven't for a while.

Both of you know this is the end of your relationship, there's a kind of finality to it. There is a reassuring feeling that even though this is the end of Beck&Jade, it's not the end of Beck or Jade. You can be yourself without him, and he can be himself without you.

"Why are we doing this again?" he asks from the bed, "Breaking up? What's it gonna do for either of us?"

"Who are we?" you ask, instead of answering, "You're Beck and I'm Jade but what does that mean? When was the last time we weren't defined by each other?"

"So what, you're gonna go reinvent yourself? You're gonna become a Jade without a Beck?"

"Beck," you say, taking a drag of your cigarette and watching the smoke slowly disappear, "That's what I should have been anyway."

When you wake up, she's gone but her smell is still there and so is the smudge of her eye makeup on the white pillow next to you.

You sit up in the bed and your eyes catch a white napkin near the ashtray, the messy scrawl of her name written in her dark plum lipstick.

You feel like your heart should ache but you really just feel empty. It's no surprise to you, seeing as she took your heart with her when she left.

You scoff and let out a bitter laugh. She was carrying Beck&Jade in the cage of her ribs and you were expected to go on living as nothing.

You were never as strong as her anyway.

You were even weak enough to pretend it wasn't happening. The drifting, you mean. You kept on pretending Beck&Jade wasn't turning into BeckandJade and then into Beck and Jade before there was finally so much space between your names at you had to pause a few seconds between words.

Beckand

.

.

.

Wait for it.

.

.

.

Jade.

What have you ever been, other than the boy that got Jade West to maybe love him?

Sure, you were good looking, but a lot of guys were. You were a great actor, but you went to an arts school and there was always someone better. Your wow factor was Jade.

And now, looking around your old RV, noticing her clothes and jewelry and toothbrush and hair brush missing, you feel like even less than you used to. And Jesus Christ, did she have to take the fucking fish too?

And it isn't even until you see the picture of the both of you that you keep on your nightstand that you snap.

She cut her face out of the picture.

And you pick up the frame and throw it at the wall.

The news of the break up spreads like wildfire, and just like the smoldering heat, if you get too close, you'll get burned.

But she successfully ignores the feeling of her flesh melting off her bones when she knows he's looking at her. Which, if she's honest with herself, is much too often than she'd like.

Now, contrary to popular belief, Jade West believes in love. She just doesn't believe in forever.

That's what she tells herself, at least. She tries to make it seems as though she really loved Beck Oliver and just stopped loving him, even though she wasn't very sure.

Sure, she knew she was in love with him but that's not the same thing is it and Jesus Christ she was just fourteen how was she supposed to know that that wasn't what love felt like yet?

She realizes, three years too late, that she told him she loved him three years too early.

And it's the guilt inside of her that makes her start more fights with him, makes her make him want to leave her and they all look at her with pitying stares that say oh-poor-girl-they-were-never-gonna-last and she knows she seems like the victim but she's really just the villain and there's no hero in this story is there?

If there is, it's not her. And it's certainly not Beck.

He wonders about this demon of the girl he loves (he was still allowed to use present tense, right?) and how easy it was for her to keep sitting at their lunch table and talking to him without touching him and pretending that she doesn't see the bandages wrapped around his knuckles.

He punched the picture frames hanging up on the walls because he was tired of staring at the holes next to his head where her face used to be.

And she's saying something to Cat but he's not entirely sure what but everyone is laughing and smiling and he resents them because they're not pretending everything's all right, everything genuinely feels all right to them and he's the one that's being different, he's the one that doesn't fit in aga—

"Did you ever really love me?"

The words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them and he prays to the god he's not sure he believes in that they didn't hear the question but she looks at him with her electric blue eyes and the hairs on his arms stand enough for everyone to notice.

"I don't think that's a very fair question."

She never really answers and he's not sure if he's glad about that or not.

The first time you go into the RV after Beck&Jade broke up, you're not very sure what you expect.

But it sure as hell isn't this.

You don't expect shattered glass and crumpled up paper and an empty fish tank. And, despite the huge mess, you don't expect it to feel so empty.

And you only really notice where the feeling comes from when you realize that half the stuff that's been in Beck's RV since you've known him is gone.

"Andre?" he asks, looking at you from his spot on the bed, "What are you doing here?"

"Checking up on you," you tell him, carefully avoiding glass to take a seat on the edge of the bed, "Hurricane Jade come through here lately?"

"I did it," he quietly admits, hanging his head down in almost-shame, "She packed up her shit while I was sleeping, cut her face out of all our pictures. She even took the fucking fish—"

Now, you were not a sensitive soul. Being friends with Jade West meant you heard more than your fair share of curse words in a day. But to hear them from Beck, who's only ever been cruel when Jade is involved, almost shocks you. Almost.

"Maybe this is a good thing, man," you say, patting him on the shoulder, "After all, you and Jade—"

"Me and Jade what, Andre?" he snaps, interrupting you and you think you imagine it when his eyes practically flash red.

"Dude, it was a high school relationship," you tell him, trying to keep your voice even, "It was never meant to last."

"We were going to."

"Then why didn't you open the door?"

He says nothing and you literally just sit there for five minutes until you decide to get up, and then right before you get out the door, you hear it, even though you're absolutely positive you aren't supposed to:

"I just wanted to teach her a lesson."

Being socially awkward doesn't mean you're socially ignorant and you're (almost) an actor so you can feel how the break up throws Beck off and does almost nothing to Jade.

But you can't help but notice that she seems a little more… free. And, you know, she's being significantly nicer to you even if she's still pretty mean.

Beck, on the other hand, is noticeably quieter. There is no well-intended sarcasm where they used to expect it and he spends most of lunch picking at it than really eating it.

Then you realize that the last time he talked, it ended in uncomfortable silence and you don't know if you're glad he's quiet now or not.

Beck seems as though he's lost, well, himself. And the looks he gives the girl across the table seem suspiciously like longing and desperation but you can't be too sure.

"Robbie," Beck finally says, just loud enough for you to hear from right next to him, "Stop studying me."

And you look down at your lap guiltily because Beck's always been nicest to you (yes, even nicer than Tori or Cat) and you feel bad for both him and the situation you're all in.

But you're not very sure who you feel bad for most.

It's been three weeks since the night that ruined him and slowly (very slowly) but surely, he's opening up to you and Cat.

The first time you try to help him, he politely declines but you keep pushing because you can't stand to see your friends hurt and you prod at him until he snaps at you.

Your eyes suddenly widen and a thought goes through your head:

You can't yell at me I'm Tori I'm just trying to help you who are you Beck doesn't yell at me

Then you realize it's because you've never had to deal with a Beck that didn't have a Jade. Not really.

During their first break up, it was obvious that she was crushed. He was still certain about her feeling for him.

But now Jade was doing great. And Beck had to deal with it.

"Yeah, Jadey came to my house with her stuff and she let me watch Mulan with her and then we went to bed," Cat babbles, telling Beck where Jade was after she left the RV that night.

"Of course she spent the night with you, Kitty Cat," he says, affectionately rubbing her hair like he was talking to his younger sister, "You're her best friend."

Cat smiles brightly and nods. This is good, you think, This is really good. This is improvement. He's been trying so har—

"Who else would she cry to that night?" he asks.

Wait, what?

You see the confused look on Cat's face and realizes Beck's plan:

He wants to know if Jade cried because he wasn't sure if she even cared all that much about the break up.

"Hey," you start to say, "Beck, that's not fair, you can't use Cat li—"

"Beck," says Cat, blinking up at him with wide innocent eyes, "Jadey didn't cry at all that night."

And suddenly, you promise you'll start giving Cat more credit because she's suddenly not as innocent as you think.

Jadey starts spending more time with you again and it's beginning to feel like elementary school and middle school and before you two ever met Beck.

She's watching movies with you again and she'll brush your hair and only roll her eyes once if you ask her nicely enough or promise to watch the Scissoring with her once as opposed to three or four times.

Jadey still doesn't go home (she knows her dad is trying, she really does, she just hates his new wife) but now she's nice enough to open the window when she smokes and she'll move her beer from the bottle into a mug and she never has more than one anymore.

And you finally get around to telling her everything that you didn't get to tell her because she and Beck have been spending so much time together and fighting and your brother is back in prison again this time for a few months and your parents are still on that trip across Europe and you think you like Robbie—

"You like Robbie?" she asks you, so surprised that the brush stops moving through your hair and suddenly you latch onto her waist.

"Are you mad at me Jadey?" you squeak, "Don't be mad! I'll stop liking him, just don't stop hanging out with me!"

"Hey," she says to you, almost gently (she's never gentle), "You can like whoever you want, Kid."

"I can?" you ask with wide blinking eyes and you remember when you and Jadey liked the same boy in middle school and she pushed you out of a not-too-tall tree and didn't talk to you for months. The silence hurt more than the bruises.

She rolls her eyes at you again before she puts the brush down and goes over to your fluffy pink bed that you know she hates but she'll sleep in with you anyway. "It's time for bed, Cat."

Soon it's graduation and you're completely Jade West. You're going to Julliard and you'll be the star you're meant to be with your Hollywood name and you'll do it all with your multi-streaked hair and the piercings in your face.

You vaguely remember reading something that says human completely change every seven years and the cells that make up your body will be completely different so you'll probably get rid of the hair and the piercings when you're 21. You're not too sure yet.

The night of your graduation is the night you and Beck hang out alone for the first time since you broke up. Cat's with Robbie's family for dinner and Andre and Tori have their own family and your dad showed up but your step-mom made him leave soon after the ceremony.

"Where are your parents?" you ask him and he just shrugs his shoulders and hangs his head, "Wanna go celebrate?"

So you two go to dinner (not at Nozu, tonight is special) and you decide you want another tattoo. So he takes you to the parlor where the both of you are regulars and you don't know what you want but the second you see it, you know you can't live without it.

You watch him as the needle scrapes your skin and you wonder what happened to this shadow of the boy you were in love with but didn't quite love. When you told him you loved him, you thought you really meant it but then much too late you realized you didn't and you couldn't find it in you to take it back.

And that night you leave with a small black upside down crescent moon right in between your breasts and if anyone ever asks you what it means you won't know what to say but that's okay because some things don't mean a thing.

And you're Jade West, you don't have to explain yourself.

You and Jade have started spending time together again but you try not to fool yourself because you know that she'll leave at the end of the summer whether you want her to or not and you'll be stuck dealing with yourself.

No matter how much you pretend that this is summer of Beck&Jade, it's actually Beck and Jade and sometimes Cat but increasingly Cat&Robbie but in that cute adorable way that doesn't seem as co-dependent as you.

You still haven't exactly realized how to be on your own and you know it'll come with time. But the fact of the matter is, you still need to be ready to be a Beck without a Jade. You could never really have that girl, no one could, but it's not in the desperate romantic sense.

Tori would never really be Andre's.

Cat would never really be Robbie's.

Nobody would have those girls except themselves, because that's just the way people are. That's what you need to accept before you go running after this girl again.

One day.

Maybe.

Author's Note: Reviews and referrals are always appreciated.