A/N: So this is dark. Probably the darkest thing I've written. There's cutting and a suicide, and if either of these aren't your fancy, you can leave, and if either of these will act as a trigger, please leave.
It's basically a very angsty look at what could have happened to Jade after Beck. First time in this fandom, and definitely not my best work, so please be kind. Feedback of any kind is love.
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maybe January light will consume
my heart with its cruel
ray, stealing my key to true calm.
~pablo neruda
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they were never destined for a happy ending, but she never thought that she would care when the storybook closed.
now she's left wandering alone through her life like a passerby with vacant eyes, blindly stumbling through the world. she is not jade without beck, but jade after beck, like he was a train wreck or a flash flood or a rattling flame that devoured her body, her mind, but without leaving any visible scars to prove that she survived the worst.
it's all right though, because she can take care of that final step herself.
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she used to cut herself sparingly, just to see if she still was capable of hurting, if she could still feel.
now, it's the rehearsal before the show, the scales before the solo, the opening act before the main event.
after all, the big day's coming up soon.
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jade lays her tools down carefully, lovingly, on the side rim of the tub.
she slides a finger along the edge of a blade, just to make sure it's sharp enough.
blood blossoms crimson in answer.
the time has come.
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it will be beautiful, she thinks dreamily, swirling a hand in the warm water. there will be red-as-blood ribbons adorning her pale-as-snow skin, and her black-as-night hair will be floating around her like a stained halo.
it will be lovely, she whispers to herself, flipping off the fan and softly closing the door so that the translucent steam stays locked inside the bathroom, pulsing around her like a breathing ghost.
it will be haunting, she laughs to herself, imagining the look on her father's face when he finds her there, crowned in her final glory, mocking him with one last smile.
it will be her death.
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the clock chimes twelve.
she slips off her clothes, sinks into the water, and picks up the blade .
the first thing she carves into her skin is his name.
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when the knife slips from her fingers and falls into the water, slippery slick and hot with blood, she doesn't bother picking it up. she's done a hard day's work, she reasons, and besides, she's suddenly tired. so tired.
as she lies in the tub, with his name and broken hearts and his name and falling stars and his name and half circles and his name dug into her skin, all leaching blood that is dissolving into the water and making it blush around her, she thinks about how she always knew, somehow, that it would end this way.
and as she closes her eyes and lets herself drift, she wonders, dreamily, if he knew it too.
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in this part of the story I am the one who
dies, the only one, and i will die of love because i love you,
because i love you, love, in fire and blood.
~ pablo neruda
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