a/n: This is an expanded version of my original Chapter 3 from "Drive You Out of Your Mind." Thank you to Caralynne and Jeremy Shane for your wonderful reviews on the original and Happy Holidays to all of you!
Trying to figure out the timeline of Victorious makes my head hurt, so I'm not quite sure this is canon compliant - but it's Christmas their senior year, set a year after "A Christmas Tori." Third-person is Beck's perspective, first is Jade's. Beck doesn't come nearly as easily to me as Jade does so I'm sorry for how short his parts are. And how I'm apparently incapable of writing a happy ending.
They wake up around the same time. He texts her, "Merry Christmas!" She replies, "Same to you, can't wait to see you!" He puts on nice clothes and drives over to her house where she greets him, still in pajamas, laughing and kissing his cheek. He goes inside to the rest of her still-pajamaed family and they open gifts and eat breakfast. Then, they go upstairs and he sits on her bed while she dances and laughs, putting on a dress, makeup, jewelry. Downstairs, she hugs her parents and they head out, over to his house. His family is waiting, and they smile at her and exchange gifts before sitting down to dinner. Afterwards, they drive around, just the two of them, looking at lights, his arm wrapped around her.
Suddenly, he blinks awake in the dark. His first thought is that he has zero idea where that dream came from, the second is that he knows exactly where it came from - it's a pretty solid picture of how he thought love, family, and Christmas were supposed to be.
"Merry Christmas!" he texts her, still half-asleep, trying to capture a moment of it.
The reply comes instantly, a rush of angry consonants, followed by, "Fucking hell, did you have to remind me, you sap? An exclamation point, really?"
"That's not merry."
"Fuck merry."
Well then.
It's not that I hate Christmas - the idea just lovely if you're into fat men giving gifts and hanging weird shit on trees. But really, I don't care to be around my family on normal days and I get the distinct impression that they don't care to be around me. So why the fuck do we celebrate by insisting on us occupying the same airspace? How the fuck is that merry and happy and jolly and anything other than awful?
Hint: It's not.
All of potential my Christmas Day plans are bleak: Mom's off in Vegas with the boy of the month (if she returns having made him the stepfather of the month, I am going to destroy her bedding. Then, at least she won't be able to celebrate it), I can't be alone with Robbie without being severely tempted to kill him, I'm just not going over to Tori's, Cat's family rituals are too weird even for me, and Andre's grandmother thinks I'm a ghost, so I'm not allowed over there either and Beck's not even an option as his entire family hates me. So, I'm stuck at Dad's instead of literally anywhere else and the best alternative appears to be to just sleep through the whole affair.
Accordingly, my Christmas Eve plans are staying up all night watching horror movies, drinking coffee, and methodologically cutting up my stepmother's herb plants. I finally flip off the lights at 6am, visions of sleeping all fucking day dancing in my head. Or whatever.
This is entirely ruined at 9am when I am horribly awoken by my father.
"Go away, I didn't sleep."
"You should have thought of that, get up. And wear something festive, none of that all black crap."
I groan and roll as far away from him as possible. This is not happening, he will go away and I will sleep forever and then I shall wake up tomorrow and Beck and I shall-
"I'm not leaving until you wake up."
"Fine," I slam my hand into the wall, hoping to damage something, and roll out of bed, "Happy?"
He doesn't answer the question, but the answer is obviously no. "Go get ready, your grandparents will be here in an hour."
He leaves, I kick the wall a few times. I'm not wearing shoes, so I'm a bit ineffective at damaging it, but it's the thought that counts. As I move towards the bathroom to shower, my phone pings.
"Merry Christmas!"
Riiiighht. Handling my family on three hours of sleep is really fucking merry. I slam my hand into the keyboard a few times and follow it with "Fucking hell, did you have to remind me, you sap? An exclamation point, really?" Because really, that was just entirely unnecessary.
"That's not merry." Last I checked, Beck is as much of a Christmas fan as I am, so this shit's just getting weird.
"Fuck merry."
He doesn't reply to that one.
A shower later, he's shaken himself out of whatever this morning was. It's not that he wants normal, happy, smiling, easy. And he's fully aware that if he did, he could get it a million times over.
But he wants her in all of her darkness, insanity, and how she is just the opposite of effortless, something he couldn't just breeze by like he did everything else. It makes sense on a level that's more primal than anything else. He can't explain a thing, but most of the time, he's more sure of her than anything.
But there are times he sees other people, girls who pat his arm and stroke his ego, and it is just so tempting how simple it could be. To fall into a relationship instead of having to work at it constantly, to have a pretty (not that she's not pretty), effortless girl he could bring home for Christmas. Or even ask if he could bring her home for Christmas without prompting an awkward, tense, conversation as his parents do confrontation horribly but cannot hide how they absolutely do not want her there.
As he gets dressed, he tries to convince himself that it's not keeping a secret if the thoughts only last for a few seconds.
I shower until the water scalds me, stick in the largest eyebrow ring I own (it's sparkly, for the holidays!), and decide a touch of green counts as festive because I don't own a single thing that's red (Maroon, yes. Red, no.) and very thought of the two colors together makes me want to vomit (who the fuck came up with that combination?).
If we were any two other people, Beck would be at my house or I would be at his or something romantic and disgusting like that. But his family can't stand me, partially on account of the whole dog thing (which was over two years ago for God's sake and a fucking mistake), partially on account of me.
My family can't stand me - they claim completely on account of me, I think it's more the fact that they're a bunch of bitches. Either way, having him around them is just beyond out.
He slowly goes inside, it's fucking cold for LA. His parents and sister are all sitting on the couch, fully dressed, sipping coffee, formal, and clearly waiting for him.
They look perfect.
"Merry Christmas!" he makes his voice happy and smiles his fake smile, fighting the feeling that he doesn't fit in here.
And so it begins.
I do occasionally wonder why I'm like this.
Everyone is so quick to point to poor Jade and her fucked up parents, but, as fucked up as we are, blaming them is way too easy and I'm generally not a fan of giving them credit for anything. And I was like this before they fell apart. Sarcasm and cruelty are just always on the tip of my tongue and nastiness just always feels so right and comes easily, easily, easily. I love yelling and vicious, hissing whispers. Destroying is easier than creating, sarcasm easier than any other means of communicating, glaring easier than smiling. I have fond Christmas memories of being about five, maybe, and pissed as fuck when my new toy hammer was cheap plastic and didn't actually smash anything.
So, I stole a real one out of our garage and used that instead.
I've also always been smart.
Eventually, it's too much and he sneaks off to the bathroom to text her (no phones at a family gathering).
"Wanna do something after?"
Her reply is instant, "Yes, get me the fuck out of here right now."
As tempting as it is to sneak out the window and not come back, he can't. It'll mean confrontation and tense and veiled threats about how he should really find someone better, "I wish, babe. I can't get out before like 8:30."
"Pick me up at 9 then and you had better be on time or else I am going to kill everyone here. Slowly. With knives probably because scissors will just be far far too ineffective."
He thinks of his proper parents sitting at the table and he's not sure how he is so in love with a girl who thrives off of death threats.
My cousins cause me pain in the same way Tori does. They're just too much, effortless pretty and sociable and happy and normal and wondering who the silently, glaring freak (their word, not mine) in the corner is. Oh, is it Jade? She was so cute as a kid, what happened?
I'm still attractive, thanks everyone. Sure, the fact that my hair now apparently resembles a bruise and my face has more jewelry than a young girl's should (again, not my phrasing here) are apparently seriously problematic. And then there's the slight concern that all of you seem to have stolen all the melanin in our gene pool because I sure as fuck don't have any. But come on.
I am fully content to just sit in the corner and observe their version of a holly fucking jolly Christmas. Dad actually hid all of the scissors because Jade is apparently an immature brat, as overheard conversations inform me (He missed half of my secret stash, but getting those would imply that I have a secret stash.). Unfortunately, with an early decision college acceptance (and full scholarship) under my belt, everyone feels the need to approach me and talk to me and congratulate me. The insane fakeness of it all makes my skin crawl - I can deal with fake when I can get something out of it, but here they're just talking because it seems like the "right thing" to do.
For all my alleged flaws, at least I'm honest. If you're going to insist that we all must be in the same room, it's your own damn fault that the girl in the corner is ruining your image of a perfect fucking Christmas, so deal with it. Don't make it more painful for you and me with your rambles about, "Oh, won't New York be so nice," "Won't it just be so fun," and my personal favorite - "What are you studying?" "Musical theatre." "Oh..."
I decorate my Pearphone case by digging my fingernails into it.
The phone pings, "Wanna do something after?"
"Yes, get me the fuck out of here right now."
"I wish, babe. I can't get out before like 8:30."
"Pick me up at 9 then and you had better be on time or else I am going to kill everyone here. Slowly. With knives probably because scissors will just be far far too ineffective."
My stomach twists as I imagine if Beck were here. He'd fit right in with them - he's a master of charisma and unnecessary conversation and smiling when he doesn't exactly want to. I picture him sitting with my cousins and realizing that he could have that, and just how easy it would be.
It's not that I don't trust him not to cheat. It's that I don't trust him to keep seeing me as something special, beautiful, lovable, all adjectives I fucking hate, by the way, but can't help from needing to hear them a million times from his lips. Because, eventually, if he's around people like that too long, he'll realize that he's not supposed to think those things about me and just become like everyone else.
Finally, finally, finally, it's 9. I grab Dad and pull him away from the family affair.
"I'm going out. I'll be late. Really late."
"You had better come home, you're not sleeping at his house."
This is normally where I would pull out the cliche-yet-so-effective divorced kid method of telling Dad I'm at Mom's and vice versa. I've done it a million times, usually I don't even have to tell them, they just assume. Unfortunately, Dad is fully aware Mom is in the next state, so that will be a bit fruitless. I roll my eyes and stop my feet all the way out the door.
He pulls up in her driveway and has barely sent the "here" message when she's flying out of the door and into his car.
"Drive." she says, not a request. He complies.
He watches her press her face to the window and look out at the rows of closed shops and still twinkling lights. A few miles in, she sighs and grabs his hand off the wheel, entwining it with hers. He smiles and looks over, "Bad day?"
"You know," she looks surprised at his face, "Good day?"
"It's going to be."
"Yeah," she mutters, "Yeah..."
Because it's 9pm and there's no where else to go, they end up at an Applebees. They're celebrating by turning the sports bar into a karaoke bar. A woman screeches some song about how "God is great, but beer is good," clearly having had far too much of the latter. When someone attempts to rap, Jade raises an eyebrow at him.
"Can you think of anywhere else to go"
"No..." She sips her drink and an ice cube falls on her lap. She tosses it into remnants of her salad and he watches her watch it melt for a few minutes.
She finally looks up, "I wish we could just be us."
Last Christmas is the reason I'm not entirely turned-off to the holiday. The first half was fucking brilliant - there was a freak snowstorm, except, it's LA, so there was really only about half an inch of the stuff. But, it was enough so that I could claim I couldn't drive in it and merrily stay in Beck's RV. I hadn't been there too much in the past month because of the fucking cricket and it was just ... nice.
Until noon, when all the snow pretty much all melted and my dad informed me that I better get the fuck home. And then we had a fun discussion about the age-old question as to if I should really be spending nights at my boyfriend's house.
(Dad's still unaware of the RV status, which is most definitely for the best. All I had to do was ask, "Do you really think Beck's parents would let us sleep in the same room?" The answer is absolutely no, but given that Dad thinks we're staying in their house, and not in the driveway, he never asked the essential preliminary question, "Did they know you were there?" The answer to which is also no as the Oliver family just assumes that Beck's literally sleeping till noon instead of the euphemistic sleeping with Jade till noon and tend not to check-in.)
But until then, it was nice.
Applebees on Christmas is not nice. Not even close, Applebees is now on the list of things I hate if only for their tendency not to vet their karaoke participants before allowing them up on stage.
But if it's all we've got...
"I wish we could just be us," I say to the puddle of water in my salad.
"We will, someday."
I look up at him, "If we survive."
He leans across the table and kisses me, which is his usual response to anything painful and difficult, if just leaving or feigning nonchalance isn't an option. It's nice, but doesn't change the fact that the finite timeline of us is hitting me like a hurricane in a way that sad sex or angry sex can't fix.
They do go look at the lights.
Not because they're pretty or because they're romantic. He doesn't want to be home, she doesn't want to be home, they have no where else to go.
"That's fucking tacky," her bluntness, her honesty are incredibly refreshing after hours of fake laughter and ignoring any semblance of a problem. He grabs her hand and they blink up, practically blinded by the garish display.
They drive on through the neighborhoods, hands entwined, her head on his shoulder. "Can we do this again next year?" she mutters as they pull into her driveway.
"If we survive," he smiles as if this is a complete impossibility, "It's going to be great, babe."
Three hundred and sixty-four days later, she wakes up three thousand miles away. She doesn't have a single plan, which a year ago would have made her ecstatic.
But all she can do is lie there and wonder if it was a self-fulfilling prophecy that they didn't.