So two weeks ago I start writing this Beck-centric piece, angsty and sort of morbid, about how his life would play out if he and Jade never got back together and he ended up not getting famous. It featured a really pathetic Beck, and to be honest I didn't like it very much, and then I saw those Bade-cowboy-kissing-cuddle-fest videos and I felt much happier, so I came up with this disaster instead.
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Cat is always the first one there.
It isn't because she particularly likes sports bars or obnoxious men hitting on her, Jade knows, picking her way through the crowd surrounding the bar and raising her hand for drinks. It's because she cares the most, because she's the one who plans these ridiculous things and is, in many respects, the only one who still struggles to keep their already shaky bonds to each other loosely attached.
One of the bartenders notices her snapping fingers and disgruntled expression and sidles over with a grin, recognizing her and already filling up six shot glasses with clear vodka.
"Tough day at work?" he asks with a smirk. Jade rolls her eyes, but keeps her expression good-natured. If she plays her cards right, he may let her off without paying.
"The worst," she deadpans, walks closer and leans her weight against the countertop so her shirt gapes open slightly. "Newspaper publishing is not for the weak and weary."
He chuckles lightly, letting his eyes skirt over her cleavage appreciatively and placing the tray full of drinks in front of her. "Nothins' glamorous these days," he says with the air of a person who thinks they've seen it all and done it all before. He drops limes wedges into each glass, "We're all just tryin' to get by."
Jade wants to growl at him, wants to tell him she really appreciates getting this solid gold advice from a middle-aged bartender, and to quit thinking he knows her, but she resists. Jade has lived enough years without special treatment by now to know that quiet courtesies and biting your tongue gets you promotions and free drinks, while being sarcastic and having a bad attitude will get you kicked off of even the most pitiable stage or movie set often and easily.
"Yeah," she agrees, lifting the tray off the bar with one hand and reaching for her purse with the other, "Just trying to get by," She catches his eye and smirks slightly and the nameless man's eyes linger on the tilt of her lips before he shakes his head at her and smiles in return.
"On the house," he offers, just like Jade knew he would, and she makes a big show of being flattered, "Oh, for real? Golly gee, thanks mister!"
Before she rolls her eyes at his eager "See you next Sunday!" and swaggers away.
She cranes her head over the throng of people to find Cat's distinctive hair color and is irritated to realize that Tori is already sitting next to her, chatting animatedly away.
"Hey," Tori grouches when Jade reaches them, tucking some hair behind her ear and licking her lips. Her eyes are securely focused on the tray in Jade's hands, "Is that grey goose? Please tell me it's grey goose. It's been a grey goose sort of day."
"It isn't grey goose," Jade sneers, even though it is, and as soon as she slides the tray onto the table, Tori reaches for a shot and drowns it in a solid gulp.
"Marge," she says without preamble, pausing to suck on the lime wedge and scrunching her nose slightly at the bitter taste, "Is driving me crazy. I accidently messed up her eight o'clock and she made me spend the rest of the day ordering and answering her client complaints!"
She reaches for another one, and Jade almost tells her to wait for the others, but then realizes a statement like that would come under the heading of "caring" or "being compassionate" and although she has changed through the seasons and years, Jade would never be either, so she reaches for her own and allows Tori to go on griping.
"Do you know," she continues after sucking it down and slamming the glass onto the table with about as much force as Jade supposes all thirty pounds of her can muster, "How many client complaints a person as obnoxious and evil as Marge has? Do you?"
"Thirty-two?" Cat offers kindly, speaking for the first time since Jade arrived. Jade snorts amusedly and pushes a shot towards the redhead before pursing her lips and drowning her own, reveling at the feeling of liquid fire burning a pathway down her throat to settle warmly in the pit of her belly.
"Hundreds!" Tori exclaims wide-eyed. She flails her arms and screeches too loud. The shrill sound earns approving looks from a group of guys a couple tables over, something Jade really doesn't need right now.
"Shut it," she grits from between clenched teeth, already glaring heavily at the one man who had been brave enough to stand and try to venture to their table. He shrinks back under her intense stare and scuttles back to his friends, who promptly mock his cowardice.
Tori turns her head to see the focus of Jade's vexation, and giggles when she realizes. She runs a hand through her shoulder length hair to fluff it out.
"Isn't it cool though," she grins, her anger and frustration waning away so easily with the help of alcohol and ranting and hot interested men, "That we still get looks like that? Even though we're all old and married?"
Jade snorts diversely and reaches for another shot, realizing they were now down to just one, and would have to go for another round, "I'm not married," she reminds her, poking a finger into her drink, "And I'm not old."
"Twenty-nine is old," Tori insists, rolling her eyes and leaning back against the booth with folded arms, "And whose fault is it that you're not married?" Jade growls deep in her throat and sorely misses the days when this girl was still scared of her.
When she narrows her eyes dangerously and opens her mouth to retaliate, Cat stands abruptly and waves her arms frantically between them going "no, no, no!", as if prepared to physically force them apart if need be, so scared of a falling out between them these days. But they are all saved from a fight or argument or permanent parting of ways, or whatever, when Andre and Robbie edge up to them with a pitcher full of beer and a tray of tall glasses.
"Hey," Robbie chirps, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and grinning at each of them in turn before taking a seat.
"Yeah, hey," Andre mutters, significantly less cheerfully as he slides in beside Robbie.
"Beer?" Jade hisses, looking between them to determine whose bright idea this was. Robbie pulls on his collar nervously and Jade's eyes fix on him, "Cat doesn't drink beer."
"Oh," he says, looking over at the girl in question with genuine surprise and frowning, "Sorry I forgot—"
Jade opens her mouth angrily to yell at him some more—she needs to do something with all this pent-up anger—when Cat cuts in, leaning over Robbie to slosh beer into a tall glass and taking a large sip. "That's okay!" she insists in a cheerful voice, wincing slightly at the taste, "I like it now!"
Jade grumbles and looks away, aware that it was the second time this evening Cat had to intervene to and hating it. There was time, Jade remembers; when she could say anything she wanted to this group of people, stalk away however often, give each of them biting, cutting remarks in turn, and they'd still be sitting at the same table outside during lunch the next day with a spot left open and inviting, for her.
Now things were significantly different. Whatever Cat was trying to rectify, trying to save, was barely there anymore—they had much more history and bitterness between them now than they did when they were sixteen and secure with their futures and themselves.
"Where's Beck?" Tori asks suddenly, breaking Jade out of her musings and she feels an irrational thrum of irritation sweep through her.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" she sneers, noting that Andre wasn't seated across from her anymore, that he had probably ventured back to the bar for more diverse drinks. Tori raises her eyebrows coolly but doesn't rise to the bait. Instead she turns to Cat and asks what's new in the world of teaching toddlers their ABCs.
Cat giggles and begins talking, just as Andre comes back with a tray full of amber liquid on ice. For a few minutes as they listen to Cat babble, it's almost easy to pretend they're in high school again and her stories revolve around a psychotic older brother rather than a bunch of little kids they've never met. It's easy enough to see the table they settle around as the couch in Tori's parent's living room and the deep, warm liquid they guzzle as nothing but hot cocoa.
And they're all laughing by the time Cat finishes her story, full-bodied and stirred on by alcohol, by the lack of inhibition and the type of familiarity that comes from knowing the same people for too many years.
It is in the midst of this that Beck arrives, and Jade can always tell when he does, even if her head is tilted back in laughter and her eyes are screwed shut against happy-tears. There's a hush that comes over most people as they watch him enter, the stop-and-stare kind of response that stems more of the confidence with which he saunters in than the attractiveness of his features. It has been fifteen years, and Jade knows him so well it consumes her.
"Hey guys," he says, running a hand through his hair and seating himself beside Jade. He reaches for a tumbler and takes a slow, measured sip. Jade can feel him trying to catch her eye, even as the whole table choruses with hellos, but she bites the inside of her cheek and doesn't look over at him.
From her peripheral vision, she can see him sigh heavily and reach for another glass.
"I should've become a teacher," Tori moans, after saying hello to Beck, swirling the contents of her glass angrily so some spills over onto her hands. She doesn't seem to notice. "I mean, of course, the original dream was to sing, but…" she trails off quietly then, staring blankly down at the table and no one bothers to help her finish. That subject, in Jade's mind, is completely taboo, and she doesn't quite fancy Tori reminding them all of what failures they'd turned out to be.
"Anyways," Tori starts again after a moment, shaking her head and obviously trying to dispel the suddenly tense atmosphere, "Being a secretary is the worst!"
"Well it's better than being a waiter!" Robbie cries from the far end of the table. He's happily smashed, and is suddenly finding the red tips of Cat's hair utterly fascinating. "No one ever tips guys! Only the women have an extra hundred or so dollars by the end of the night. It's misogynistic I tell you!"
Cat and Tori giggle, but Jade rolls her eyes, throwing a lime wedge at his hair.
"The opposite of misogynistic, you mean." She drones, and when everyone stops laughing and turns to look at her like she's crazy, she bares her teeth at them, annoyed.
"Misogyny is a hatred of women. Robbie means a hatred of men, which is misandry."
There are blank stares all around, until Beck clears his throat and speaks up next to her, shrugging slightly.
"It's Greek," he offers as explanation.
Cat, Robbie and Tori erupt in giggles, and even Andre turns to give her a slow, uneven grin.
"Some things never change, I guess." He says, draining the last of his beer and helping himself to more.
Jade glares at each of them in turn and when she reaches Beck, she frowns deeply to she see he's laughing along.
"You know," Jade mentions, staring at them through clouded, narrowed eyes, they quiet down a bit at her commanding tone, and Jade takes pleasure in that. "If I had known I was just going to get stuck with you lot for the rest of my life, I would've seriously considered letting myself become a victim of teen suicide."
And suddenly they're in hysterics; all of them, falling over each other and clutching at one another, wiping rolling tears sloppily with the backs of their hands. They laugh for hours, it seems, open-mouthed with whole bodies quivering and convulsing because it's funny and they can't believe it either; the talent was there in all of them from the very start but the friendship never was, not really, and how ironic that they got nowhere and have no-one but each other.
All laughing and laughing except Beck. He shakes his head and gives her reprimanding furrow of eyebrows.
"Don't say things like that," he admonishes, and Jade is just about to tell him to calm down, my god, it was a fucking joke you pansy, when he wraps an arm around her neck and pulls her closer.
Jade huffs, and on instinct, without thinking, she entwines her hand with his where it hangs off her shoulder. And since she's almost directly across from Tori and is still sort of pissed at her from earlier and none of them have stopped laughing at her and she doesn't care much for the girl in any case, Jade swiftly kicks her under the table.
"Ow!" Tori yelps immediately, rubbing her shin and glaring glassy-eyed at Jade, "You kicked me!" she accuses dramatically, standing shakily and pointing a finger at her, looking down under the table at Jade's guilty foot.
She gasps then, teetering violently and falling back onto her seat. Andre, beside her, looks concerned. He pats her on sloppily on her cheek and asks, "You okay?"
But Tori violently bats his hand away with both of hers. With a shaky finger pointed towards Jade and wide eyes she takes in a gasping breath and says, outraged,
"You kicked me! And with my own boots! How could you? I've only been looking for them for years!"
There is too much of a screechy edge in Tori's voice, the way it always gets when she's had too much to drink and then gets all riled up, but Jade is so proud of herself for hurting her physically and pissing her off emotionally all in the span of two minutes that about all she can manage to do is smirk and sip her beer.
"They look better of me anyways," she goads and Tori screeches again, this one almost incomprehensible, and sits back in defeat. She gestures wildly at Andre for another refill.
"Jaaade!" Cat reprimands laughingly, drunkenly, patting Tori's hair from where she has slunk all the way down in her seat. "That wasn't very nice!"
"I'm not very nice." Jade counters, and beside her Beck shifts so that his other hand is placed coolly on her upper thigh.
"You are sometimes," he whispers hotly into her ear, words slurred very slightly and Jade rolls her eyes and whispers for him to shut the hell up, pressing her head to his, nuzzling.
"You are sometimes," Robbie offers louder from way down the table, raising his glass as if to toast to her, and Jade sighs deeply when next to him Cat nods eagerly in agreement.
"She is not." Tori gripes, still upset, but her eyes don't hold very much antagonism, and she cocks her head to the side. "And they look better on me, dammit."
Jade snorts, but feels Andre kick her lightly under the table, and when she looks up at him she sees he's holding the pitcher out, and there's just a little left, less than a sip maybe and he slips the remainder into Jade's glass.
"Thanks," she mutters to Andre for the beer and to Tori for the shoes and to Beck and Cat and Robbie who, for whatever reason, don't think she is as hideous and horrible as all those mediocre directors and television producers did.
And Jade feels an inexplicable, familiar rush of warmth; one she doesn't like, one that scares her a little, so she bites her lip and drowns the last of her beer, trying to swallow it down.
Maybe Jade doesn't have red carpets. Maybe she doesn't have thousands of cheering fans and microphone in one hand, an Academy Award in the other. Maybe she doesn't have the record deal and the fan-signings and the movie premiers and the young girls all over the world staring wistfully at their computer screens, wishing they could be her. But maybe that's okay. Maybe it's like what Andre said earlier—some things never change—and Jade, she has friends still, solid and comfortable and ever-present; a group of people she can truly attest have been with her for as long as she can remember. She has several bridesmaids gowns stowed in the back of her closet and even more borrowed-forever-shoes; and she has these—these Sunday nights at a sports bar on the edge of town, golden beer and laughter and stories of regret. She has this comfort, this familiarity and fluency, this complete and utter fullness that starts at her stomach and leaks into every crevice of her being, making her feel alive and wonderful. And she has, has always had in some manner, Beck.
And that's enough for now.
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Yeah, so.
It's actually more gang-centric than Bade centric, and I don't know, I guess I just started thinking that dreams don't always come true—especially not when the dream in question is becoming famous, but I wanted them to stay close friends, like they'd lost all their dreams and ambitions, but they hadn't lost each other, you know?
Also, Beck and Jade aren't really together here, in case that wasn't clear. I mean they've obviously still got something going on between them, but they aren't officially a couple.
I oddly have another idea for this, and I was thinking to make this into an anthology maybe? Like a series or something where they stay un-famous, but also stay friends (and, yanno, in some cases more than friends) and just get drunk together? They wouldn't be so old in each one, and they'd have a little bit more backstory to them. What do you think?
Also, I have the Beck-centric piece mentioned earlier all written out, but idk if I should post it, it sort of inspired this whole thing, so.
God, I have to stop talking.
Review, or something.