Make Believe 'Til Nothing's Real
for Alexandra Shinai, 3rd place winner of my children of time game :)
yep, another bade request. anyone else sick of beck and jade yet? lol, jk. no but seriously, if i write another oneshot for this couple, i might start shipping them myself. they are too adorbz. anyway, this oneshot is written entirely in indirect dialogue (somewhat). hopefully it's not too confusing. enjoy.
title and quotes from "yellow brick roads" by backseat goodbye.
You said you used to find hope in the stars.
But even on the tips of your toes, they're just too damn far.
They are lying on the roof of her house.
Which is dangerous, as he had stated, but she drags him out her window and up the slanted tiles nonetheless. She tells him to quit being a wuss and relax, she used to climb up here all the time and pretend she was a ninja.
Then his foot slips and he is sliding, sliding, sliding and holy shit, he almost fell off her godforsaken roof. That, in addition to his irrational fear of heights, sure put him in a wreck. He was this close to falling to his untimely death so can they please just lie down or something, you know, less suicidal?
She calls him a drama queen, but lies down beside him anyway.
It's nice—the gentle breeze of the fading summer, the quiet neighborhood beneath them, the cloudless night sky above. It was a soft, fragile moment. They whisper to each other to fill up the silence.
The summer is almost over. They graduated from Hollywood Arts last June and suddenly, their time together was numbered. Every moment leads them closer to their imminent yet unspoken end.
On August 7, he will be flying to Pittsburg where he will be attending Carnegie Mellon University in the fall for a degree in acting theater. And he will be amazing, she's sure of it, because he is Beck Oliver and when has he not been the leading man? He's not even famous yet, and he's already breaking hearts.
As for her, she'll be going to California Institute of the Arts, taking a few classes for playwriting, some for acting, and perhaps some for music and dancing too. Why not, she's versatile. But is that even a good thing. She was looking through her files the other day and found her old work and old performances, and yeah, she's good, but is she good enough?
Of course she's good enough, he reassures her, why would she ever ask a silly thing like that.
Because she is only Jade West, after all. She can sing and dance, but there is always someone better. She can shine on stage, but there is always someone brighter.
She is pretty, but there is always someone prettier.
Vega is going to Carnegie Mellon, too.
He nearly laughs. Scratch that, he actually does laugh. She doesn't trust him. He can't believe that after all this time, she still doesn't trust him. Kissing her cheek, he tells her that she is being kind of a fool right now. He loves her, just her. Forever. Duh.
Her eyes flicker from his face to the stars to her feet and back to meet his eyes. Looking over at his moonlit profile, she feels her heart ache, torn with indecision and fear. She can't do this, she has to do this, she doesn't want to do this, she must do this. Finally, she sits up and sighs. She can't do this.
Can't do what? He follows suit and sits up—rather shakily, still eyeing the edge of the rooftop with malice—and wraps his arm around her waist, asking her what's wrong.
With a heavy voice, she confesses the reason she invited him to come over in the first place: she was going to break up with him tonight.
He just stares at her, because his brain stopped working and he can't process the words she just said. She was planning to dump him? Tonight? On top of a roof? What, so if the break up happens to gets nasty, there's always the off chance that he'll fall off the roof?
No, she swears that thought never crossed her mind.
Tentatively, he grabs a tighter hold of the rooftop tiles and checks to make sure that she isn't breaking up with him anymore, right?
She shakes her head no and he breathes again. But, he wonders, why would she even want to?
Long distance relationships are a bucketful of crap, she explains to him. It starts with false hope that they will last, then one feels guilty when one finds someone new, and then it ends with cheating and betrayal because obviously the guilt thing never works. It's a game she doesn't want to play. So she thought, better end it now and save herself the heartbreak later. And yet, she can't for the life of her find it in herself to break up with him now.
He asks her why that is.
She says that sometimes, she really hates him and all his dashing looks and big-heartedness and whispered promises of eternity, together. Sometimes, he has her believing in that childish fairytale nonsense all over again.
Those stories aren't real, she insists. Prince Charming doesn't exist. It's all just make-believe.
Well, of course the stories are all make-believe, he says, but that doesn't mean you should stop believing in them.
His words hang in the air for a few seconds before she rises to her feet again and climbs to the apex of her roof. He doesn't even try to go after her; she knows about his acrophobia. Instead, he stays firmly seated and watches her stand up there, shoulders back and hair flowing in the wind like an angel of the night.
She tells him she used to believe. Once upon a long lost time, she believed in magic and true love and, most of all, wishes. When she was little, she wished on absolutely everything: 11:11, eyelashes, birthday candles, other people's birthday candles, fountains, wells, stars. Especially stars. And she didn't restrict herself to shooting stars or evening stars or the brightest star. She used to wish on every single star she saw in the whole damn sky.
It was pretty ridiculous. She laughs now, just thinking about it.
He chuckles a bit too. But he also thinks it kind of tragic that a little girl would have so much to wish for.
Then what happened, he asks. Why did she stop believing? Why did she stop wishing?
Slowly, she raises her heels up until she's only standing on the balls of her feet. He panics, because what if she falls?, but he can't move, because what if he falls? She doesn't tumble, though, thank goodness. Like a gymnast, she stays completely balanced as she stretches her right hand into the sky, almost as if she was reaching for the stars. And slowly, she lowers herself back down to lie beside him.
She stopped because none of the wishes ever came true, she answers him.
Ever?
Ever.
That simply shatters his heart. He always knew she was some sort of broken, but she has never shown him the cracks before. Gently, he lies back down and rolls to his side to face her. Then he asks her what about now, is she believing again?
She smiles in reply. Well, she met him, didn't she? She learned to love him, didn't she? She let him fix her, didn't she? And what a fool she was for it too, because now she can't let him go.
At this he beams, brighter than the moon.
They are lying on the roof of her house. Heads turned towards each other, lingering until the morning light. Every second of every hour of every day brings them closer to the end. But they decide to call it a new beginning instead, so this way, they don't have to say goodbye.
Maybe they were fools for falling into something, but they would be fools twice over if they ever walked away from this, because this something is something real.
They'll wait for each other. Promise.
You closed your eyes and clicked you heels,
said make believe till nothing's real.
I'm coming home soon,
I'm coming back home to you.