Authors Note: I dont own Victorious. But I do own Matt, and I kind of like him. I apologize in advance for any confusion or grammer mistakes. Please enjoy and remember, reviews are awesome, flames are for children. :)
Jades five years old when her dad decides to take off.
Her older brother Matt is standing at the door trying to compromise with their father- that things will turn up. He's only ten.
"Dad you cant leave! I can get a job, I don't have to go to school, I can work."
She cant see his face but she creeps out of her bedroom to the end of the hallway because if daddy is going to leave she wants to know why. But their fathers back is turned to both of them and he's not responding to her older brother's protest and Jade cant think to do anything but stand completely still.
"If not for me, for Jade!" He suddenly screams grabbing the older mans arm. "Jade has an amazing voice Dad, shes going to be somebody!"
Their father looks over a shoulder, and Jade remembers thinking daddy looks tired. He doesn't say a word as he brushes off Matt and closes the door quietly behind him. He doesn't even say goodbye.
(Now, she's sixteen years old and screaming at Beck, and he raises his voice and grabs her wrists and she pulls away slamming the door to his RV shut without another word.)
Maybe that's where she got it from.
:: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::
Matt's hand are strong and warm around hers as he leads her to "the better side of town" and straight through the door of Hollywood Arts. His right eye is slightly swollen an ugly black and blue, Jade's asked- but he tells her its nothing.
"Tonight's a big showcase." He tells her and Jade listens because her brother wants to go to Hollywood arts and he thinks she should too. "Its where they perform." Matt's smile is so big its contagious and she smiles too.
"This is how Ill get famous?" Jade questions shyly, moving a brown strand out of her eyes with her free hand. "This is how Ill get to sing?"
Matt smiles. "Yup, and ILL be the world greatest actor. The West's will be legends at this school!"
"So, if we get famous here will daddy come home?"
Apparently it's the wrong thing to ask because Matt's hands get just a little bit to tight and they stand seconds away from where they are suppose to slip in with a family since they cant afford a ticket.
"Jadey…we don't talk about him okay?" The bruise on his eye is a lot more noticeable inside with all the artificial light compared to the miscellaneous streetlamps outside. Jade doesn't quite understand but there's something in her brother's eyes that makes her chest spark with f e a r.
"Our parents are inside." He tells the ticket man, "They have our tickets with them."
The guy raises an eye brow untrusting before flat-lining with a "what happened to your eye?"
Matt's hands tightens on Jade's and she answers without skipping a beat. "Baseball practice. My brother obviously shouldn't catch."
The guy smiles down at her. "Well aren't you a cute one?" and he lets them in just like that.
(Now she's sixteen years old, and there's make up rolling down her face, and Andre's saying fake black eye, fake blood. But all she can hear is fake.)
It was after that lying became like second nature
:: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::
She's also five years old when she meets Beck
Jade and Matt take a seat somewhere in the middle because they don't want anyone to see that there really not suppose to be there. The curtains rise and the stage is filled with blinding lights, shiny dresses, and beautiful music.
Matt stares up in awe and Jade's mouth is open with amazement.
"Im going to get closer." Jade whispers and Matt stares at her uncertain.
"Okay. Just hurry back if someone says anything to you." Matt smiles as he watches her sister brush past the others next to them and bolt down the aisle closer to the stage. Jade's excitement was so bright it made him shiver.
They were defiantly going to be somebody, with or without their father.
XxX
There's already a boy down there with black hair and tanned skin, Jade gives him a once over before her eyes are redirected towards the stage and the beautiful people dancing and singing up there. The curtain closes after a few moments to readjust the scenery for others to perform their scene.
"Im going to be an actor." The tanned boy says staring up to her from where he sat in the aisle. "One day YOULL be watching me like that."
Jade scuffs at him "No. My brother says I'm not meant to sit in the audience. And my brothers older than you and he knows EVERYTHING."
"So you want to act to?" The boy says rising to a stand interested as he gives the girl with light brown hair and sparkling blue eyes a once over.
"Nope." She flat lines. "I'm going to be a singer." and there's a smile on her face that's so full of life it makes the little boy look down and stare at his beat up converses.
"I'm Beck." He says extending a shy hand and because the gesture is so unfamiliar to her she just stares at him for a minute before her pale fingers intertwine with his.
"I'm Jade."
"Jade we have to go" Matt says bounding down the aisle and wrapping his hand around her free left hand pulling her out of the gentle grasp of Beck's. She follows immediately daring a glance over her shoulder only to find his gaze is still locked on her.
"Ill see you later!" He yells and she watches as a long arm extends and pulls him back into one of the seats.
(I'll see you later.)
(And now she's sixteen years old and her hands are intertwined with the same boy, and his lips are pressed against her forehead, and its just never ever enough)
Jades 10 when Matt starts high school…its not Hollywood Arts.
Jade follows Matt to the bus stop because for whatever reason High school kids have to start earlier than elementary school kids.
"This isn't Hollywood Arts." Jade says simply "Why are you going to Northridge?"
Matt stares at Jade for a long moment trying to analysis who she is and who she is becoming. He has to make sure she's protected from all the shit that is in fact their life.
Her hair dangles just blow her shoulders and her eyes don't hold anything he thinks that looks like brokenness- the only thing he can see is accusation and maybe something like disappointment. She wears a black tank top with ruffles and dark blue jeans and these ugly ass combat boots that mom picked up from god knows wear. So maybe he didn't do to bad so far. She likes Poe and Shakespeare but he blames that on the inner actor inside of her.
"I told you Jade." He says with a sigh, because he's oh so tired. "We cant afford it."
"So I wont be able to go either." She says quietly, and he swears he hears her heartbreak right along with his own.
He lays a reassuring hand on her shoulder, because really what else is he suppose to do? He's only fifteen and he doesn't have all the answers.
"You know I have a job now." He says quietly. "What I don't give to mom, I put away for you- you know that."
She stares up at him kind of sadly. "I should get a job too shouldn't I?"
He shudders at the thought, but- hadn't he told his dad the same thing?
"Nah, I gotcha babe." He gives her a kiss on her forehead before the bus wanders up. "Go home Jade, enjoy the last day of your summer."
She doesn't scamper off like he'd hope instead she watches him board the bus, and than the bus drives so far out of view he cant see her anymore.
:: ::: :: ::: ::: ::: :::
&& she's twelve when all Matt's efforts go to waste.
Her mothers hands come down across her cheek so hard, she thinks she sees stars. There's just this over-whelming sense of pain that has tears burning in her eyes.
"You're the reason he's never here you know!" Mariah West screeches "You're the reason he got into that shit!"
Because Jade is who Jade is, she stands her ground. "I didn't make Matt do anything! If you got up off your lazy ass and got a REAL JOB instead of working the streets than maybe Matt wouldn't have to work so much!"
She watches her mothers face change from something angry to shock, to something almost sad, and than back to angry. Jade feels that sense of fear building up inside of her again, and its been a while since she's felt quite like this, but the fear is quickly replaced with pain as an angry hand collides once more with her face.
Than again. And again. And again. And once more for good measure.
Jade think she finally understands what happened to her brother's eye that one night before Hollywood Arts.
XxX
Its later that same night Matt comes home blood caking his abdomen, he knows mom's not there and he doesn't want Jade to see him like this, but fear is pumping through his veins and he doesn't have any other choice. Because if he wants to keep protecting her, he has to be alive to do that, right?
"Jade!"
He watches her face as she catches sight of him on the floor a pile of his own blood growing around him, her face goes from something like a smile, to something like terror. Her eyes are wide like saucers as she stares towards the knife lodged in his abdomen. He wishes it wasn't as bad as it was. He wish it didn't hurt so damn bad. But what he wishes for most is that she wasn't here so he could just die.
"Matt" her voice stammers because he's bleeding all over the place and what must be a knife is lodged in him so deep all she can see is the handle and oh god he's going to die.
"I need you to take the knife out."
He looks up at her terrified face and stares at a nasty black and blue bruise forming on her cheek. He closes his eyes and a pain from somewhere much deeper than his stomach erupts. Would he ever be able to do anything right?
Jade doesn't like to break down, her mother doesn't cry. Matt doesn't cry, why should she? But tears are running down her face and she's shaking her head so hard her whole body's shaking.
"I- I need to call the hospital."
If possible his eyes widen farther and the fear hammers in his heart and dear god he is going to die. He grabs her wrist urgently. "You cant Jade- I cant go to the hospital. Its awful Jade, Ill end up…Ill go to jail. You just- Jade Im gonna die." he croaks his voice shaking and her hands are suddenly on the hilt and…..
(and that's when Jade West becomes terrified of hospitals)
(Now she's sixteen years old and doctors are holding her arms and Beck is screaming at her to just be still and than the world goes fuzzy and finally black)
:: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::
She's thirteen when Matt calls child services.
Its Matt's eighteenth birthday and he's sitting with her on their front porch, and his head is in his hands because he's just so tired and he feels like he's turning 50 not 18. Jade wears nothing but black now, and her face is hidden behind thick makeup because he cant be there to protect her from her mothers angry fists.
He thinks she must resent him.
"I'm sorry." he mutters through his fingers and Jade lays what she thinks is a reassuring hand on his shoulders.
"What are you sorry for? We're Wests remember? We're gonna be famous one day." She thinks she might be saying the right words even if she doesn't believe in them. She's a phenomenal liar due to being left alone after school, with Matt working and Mom sleeping to get ready for her nights rendezvous, that and doing things she's not really suppose to do.
He puts his hands down and there's tears in his eyes and he pulls Jade in for a hug because he's sure its going to be the last one.
"I love you Jadey."
She barely hears him because of the sirens that suddenly come blaring around the corner. Police officers rush out of their vehicles towards them as a lady in a suit comes up towards him, words are exchanged and everything happens in a blur of colors and Jade doesn't really know what's going on but she hears her mother screaming and the lady keeps tugging on her insisting that they have to GO.
"Matt!" Jade screams over all the noise "Matt! Don't make me go with her! Its fine! Matt! Matt! Get off of me you twit! MATT! "
He turns around so she doesn't see him cry.
If she didn't resent him before she resents him now.
(Jade West is seventeen when driving through Ridgeway when her car breaks down. She calls Beck to come get her…its after that she finds Matt stumbling around drunk with another loser and even though she feels frozen- she goes to him anyway.)
:: ::: :: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::
Jade spends the summer cooped up in the good side of town with her foster (soon to be adoptive) parents. She's not really sure what she's doing as she stares out the window, in her hands is a pair of red scissors that she's been opening and closing for the last hour and a half.
"Matt." tears threaten to fall from her eyes and she slashes at her arm with the scissors until there's blood pouring down her pale skin. She wonders if she should be scared about the amount of blood that's coursing down her arm in hot angry rivers. But she's not.
She just knows she's not going to a hospital for it.
At night she screams and thrashes in her bed, noises that startle her "parents" so bad they are up at her side in zero seconds flat.
Jade really doesn't like the attention, its so unfamiliar she mumbles an "I'm fine." and tosses the blankets over her head. They hesitate for a few moments lingering around her bed, and because they've never had a kid before they don't know what to do so they slowly and reluctantly leave.
Jades so glad she didn't have to scream at them.
Coffee becomes her new best friend against her Insomnia.
Her "parents" offer therapy, she (loudly) declines.
:: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::
She sticks out like a sore thumb in Hollywood Arts. Everyone's wearing a bright rainbow of colors with vibrant personalities and amazing talents. Jade was hoping to feel something when she walked through the doors, something other than loneliness.
But than she meets Beck and her life goes from blissfully upside down to blissfully right side up.
(But even Beck cant stop the reoccurring nightmares of blue and black eyes, bloody knives, and goodbyes)
:: ::: ::: :: ::: ::: ::: ::: :: :::
"Why arent you sweating? Its like 98 degrees" Beck says staring Jade down in her long sleeved black shirt.
"I don't sweat."
"What?"
"Its disgusting so I don't do it."
"You should at least roll up your sleeves, your going to have a heat stroke or something."
His hand moves to her arm and she flinches before pulling back
"Get your hands off of me Oliver!"
He looks a little taken a back, before putting his hands up in mock surrender.
"My bad."
"Yeah, your bad." Jade says rolling her eyes tugging her sleeves down farther (because he cant see what color her arm is)
"Jade"
"What Beck? What?"
"Nothing."
And the silence builds.
:: ::: ::: :: ::: :: ::: ::: :::
She falls in love with him. Hopelessly depressingly in love with him. Her scars are slowly fading because of him, becoming less because of him. She loves him so much its physically painful. Its as if with each breath she takes she's one breath closer to suffocating. And she knows she cant love him. Not really. Because she's Jade and all she knows how to do is b r e a k things. She breaks things because that's all she knows how to do. To break things or to be broken.
She tells Melisa (her "mom")that she's going to get her eyebrow pierced. Her "mother" says she's going to do no such thing, she has a beautiful face and- (Jade slams the door in her face)
She comes back with her eyebrow pierced, her nose pierced and a tattoo of the rebel star on her forearm- just for good measure.
(She wont tell anyone the star is secretly for her brother and how he gave her the option to rebel from their broken life. )
:: :: ::: :: ::: :: :: ::: :: ::: ::
(She's seventeen when Beck saves her life)
It's 3:00am when Beck Oliver's phone rings. Beck almost doesn't answer his phone and curses the obnoxious ring tone that jingles in the dark. He manages to find his phone and pinches the bridge of his nose (as if that's going to wake him up).
"mmm" He grumbles into the phone, because really, Jade's the only one who would dare call him this late.
"My car broke down. Can you come get me?" Jade flat lines, but there's something in her voice that's not usually there, something that makes him get out of bed and causes unease to rise in his stomach.
"Where are you exactly?" He already has his coat on.
She pauses and he knows she doesn't really want to answer him- and he also knows she really doesn't have a choice.
"Jade?" He repeats again trying to keep his voice calm and not staggering because really where is the worst place she could have broken down?
"Northridge High." She hangs up the phone.
Of freaking course
:: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::
Driving through Northridge always gave Beck the creeps. You could literally watch the neighborhood go from white picket fences and green grass to broken windows and crying. Someone was always crying in Northridge. Beck flinches with the thought because Jade grew up in Northridge.
He finds the high school in minutes along with Jade's stupid beat up hand me down car(that her brother use to run around to meet his dealers in) that's seriously a death trap to drive. He wishes she wouldn't get in the damn thing. He stares at the broken down car and she of course is not in the car, because only a smart person would wait in the car. Any other sane person excluding Jade (though he was beginning to question her sanity) would hide in their car in Northridge.
That's when he saw her standing between two guys, a bottle wrapped in a paper bag, arms slunk over her shoulders, loud laughter as they point the bottle to her. She watches one of them with lost eyes and the flashbacks start as Beck closes the distance between them.
:: ::: ::: ::: :: ::: :::
They are a couple of harmless drunks. Beck knows this. He knows the one of the left is probably just some broke high school drop out with no dad and a crack addicted mom. It seems to be most kids story around here. And the other one. The other one's story is pretty much the same, except his story matters- he's Jade's older brother.
"Jadey"
(Beck watches her tremble ever so slightly)
"Dis your sisder? She got the pwetty voice right?"
(The guy on the left staggers, and Beck has to refrain from punching him)
"Jade, lets go."
(Beck extends long tan fingers to her, and Jade looks up at him-why wont she grab his hand?)
"Jadey don't go again." her brother lets something like a cry out, holding her closer "Mommy wants her baby back."
"Let go Matt." Jade says biting her lip (because she remembers fighting over the remote control, sneaking into Hollywood arts, dreams of becoming so much more than this, protective hugs and everything that made up her brother made up her and Jade West is feeling oh so h o p e l e s s)
"Want me ta cut her voice box out for ya Matt? Den you can take it home."
(He flicks open a knife and Becks hand collides with his face.)
"Jade, were going now."
(His hands are around hers, and oh god would he have cut her?)
Matt's sobbing is their soundtrack as they drive back to the good side of town
:: :: :: :: ::: ::: ::: :: :::
Jade looks up at him from within his arms as she watches the sun come up from his bullet proof windows. She can hear his heart beating wildly in his chest even an hour after the incident and she wished she was as tough as she portrayed or she would just flat out ask him why.
"Why me?" She settles and though its not the question she was thinking about- its probably the most important question she'll ever ask him.
"Why you what?" Beck says softly his lips tickling the top of her head.
"Why me? Why not Tori?"
"Why Tori when I have you?"
"She has less baggage than I do."
"She's nicer than you are too."
"See? So why don't you go be with her?"
"Because Jade, Tori only compliments me. People only think we would be together because we're similar. But, you complete me and that's what matters."
"Tell me you love me."
"What's the magic word?"
"Please?"
"I love you."
Jade West doesnt really understand why. But at this point, she doesnt really care either..
It is what it is.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed. It is what it is.