If it all goes crashing into the sea
If it's just you and me
Trying to find the light
Like ships in the night
She's fourteen the first time he sees her.
Sure, she terrifies approximately ninety-seven percent of the student body, but that somehow seems to evade him all the way to the point where he finds it kind of ridiculously entertaining. It's like the little voice in the back of his head, warmly referred to as 'common sense', failed to warn him that, hey, maybe he shouldn't go after the one girl in the whole entire school that basically embodies the whole walking time-bomb persona. When he tries to talk her and she walks away, his interest multiplies tenfold.
For the first time, Beck Oliver is fascinated by something; someone.
She's mean, and sarcastic, and if he's being completely honest, she's kind of a bitch most of the time. But she's also intelligent; probably the smartest person his age he's ever met. She's witty, creative, and so talented it makes him feel like a fraud when people come up to him and claim that he's the star of Hollywood Arts. Seriously? Beck's pretty sure that if Jade was just a little more approachable, she'd shine so bright that everyone else around her would become irrelevant. Oh, and did he forget to mention, she's fucking gorgeous.
He wants her.
And, because he's him, and things have a way of always working out in Beck's favor, he gets her.
Which is exactly when things get crazy.
They're a rollercoaster. The highs are amazing, and he feels like he's on the fucking top of the world and there's absolutely nothing else he needs in life. It feels like as long as they're together, nothing can stop them, nothing can break them. Nothing else matters but here and now and just being with her. As long as he can kiss her and hold her hand, he knows he's going to be okay.
And then the lows hit.
He can't stand the way she won't, can't, trust him. Hates the way she bursts over the littlest thing, gets jealous if he even so much as looks at another girl. Beck absolutely loathes the way she can become irrational, and holds grudges with a death grip. Abhors (yeah, she taught him that word too) the way she can make him lose his composure in a second; makes him lose control of his emotions and actions.
He despises the fact that there are, on rare occasions, moments in which she makes him hate himself for hurting her, and he hates her just a little bit for that.
Beck Oliver had never felt real hate before he met Jade West, and he hates that.
And maybe what he hates the most, what crawls under his skin at night when she's not there and he has time to think about his life and what the hell he's doing with it, is that despite how much he hates them and all that they are at moments, he just loves her so much more.
So they stay together.
Always.
Until one day, she doesn't come back.
Or, technically, he doesn't follow her.
She makes it seem like it's so fucking simple to just throw away three years of their life. She won't talk to him and he's too prideful to say he's sorry and ask her to come back, so she doesn't. She takes every means possible to ignore him and when he gets sick and tired of it, he sets to action.
He wants to hurt her, make her feel just as bad as he does so she can fucking wake up and come back to him. He wants her to have one of her dramatic episodes and demand they get back together. He wants her to want him just as much as he wants her back. Or maybe he just wants to hurt her. At that point, who the fuck knows?
So he goes after Tori.
Sweet, beautiful, Tori Vega. The girl who dared to challenge the mighty wrath of Jade West by kissing him, and somehow ended up being one of his best friends. The girl who did everything in her power to make sure her friends were happy. Who stood by their side and managed to keep her air of naivety despite being considered a superstar in school. And, more importantly, the one person who was guaranteed to hurt Jade the most if he were to date her, love her.
Except it was the ultimate failure.
Apparently, Tori considered Jade a closer friend than him. She rejected him. And, to top it all off, Jade was cool with it when she saw him, months later, with Tori on their opposite date. Like, she didn't care. Here he was, trying to get her attention, making this whole drama about her feelings and all this other bullshit only to find out that it meant nothing to her. She was over it, over him.
Talk about a blow to the ego.
But then the other side of him, which he's aptly named the 'good side' (what can he say, he's just a creative genius) rejoices in the fact that she's changing. She's letting go of the insecurities that used to make it so difficult for them to be together. When she smiles at him, one of her cute little smiles that light up her eyes, making them sparkle a crystal shade of blue, Beck thinks that maybe they're not as over as she thinks, and a smile forms on his own face.
Needless to say, they're back together a few weeks later. It's big and dramatic and romantic and public and simply put, them. She sings him a song and he kisses her onstage in front of the girl that's officially there as his date and when he does so, Jade looks over her shoulder and sends her a smirk. That's okay though, because a couple of months ago, Meredith wouldn't have stood a chance in hell of pulling off a date with him without needing a trip to E.R. by the end of the day. So, you know, baby steps. Besides, there's something about her being so possessive of him (to a certain degree) that's kind of really hot and turns him on, and it's something he'd missed in the past few months.
Yes, he is aware of how crazy and confusing he sounds.
Anyways, once he gets her back, he doesn't let go.
Everything's perfect.
Until it's not anymore.
They graduate from Hollywood Arts and their careers don't take off. Neither one seems to catch a break and they're seriously running low on everything. He takes a job as a full-time mechanic at a nearby auto-shop. The hours are flexible and his boss is pretty cool about giving him some leeway so he can go to auditions even if they're during his scheduled hours. He's become popular with the housewives who petition he be their mechanic, and whose cars happen to malfunction every week. At least they're good tippers. His coworkers joke at his expense; the pretty boy who wanted to be a movie star in Los Angeles; how typical. He sucks it up, though, because he makes enough cash to rent out a crappy one-bedroom apartment that he shares with Jade. It's small and cramped and the sink leaks water if you don't turn off the faucet in just the right way, but it's theirs and its home and that's all that matters.
There's also something to be said about finally being able to move out of his parents driveway.
Look at him being an adult.
Jade doesn't fare much better. She gets a job writing articles for a local magazine, and hates it. They limit what she can write about down to celebrities and clothes and basically change everything she comes up with. She demands they use a pseudo name for her because, as she put it, she 'will not have her name anywhere near that crap and filthy excuse for a magazine'. Her personality rubs off badly against her boss's wife, who's sure Jade's having some sort of torrid love affair with her husband. Bullshit, on every way possible. Beck knows the only reason the older woman dislikes her is because Jade has this uncanny ability to grow even more gorgeous with every year that passes. The days of thick make-up and dozens of layers of clothes are gone, replaced by a natural look with dresses and streak-less, chestnut brown hair.
Maybe her most outstanding quality is that she smiles so much more now.
Or, she used to at least.
Lately, all she seems to do is glare. Their lack of success and ability to get a break is bearing down on both of them. He doesn't mean to be rude, but he can't stop himself from snapping at her when he's exhausted and just so done with his day. She's always reminding him of something they have to do, or pay, or is past due, and he just doesn't want to hear her.
And then there's the days when he doesn't want to come home at all. When he's tempted to leave her his last paycheck and hitch a ride the hell out of Los Angeles. Days when the voice in the back of his mind blames her for holding him back. He knows she thinks the same thing about him.
But he never leaves.
He comes home from work early one day and thinks it's kind of strange that all the lights are off and there's a pile of scattered papers throughout the miniscule living room. Bills, he realizes with a frown. It doesn't take him long to find her leaning against their bed, legs pulled into her chest and arms wrapped around herself. Beck hears her soft sniffles, and his heart breaks because he knows she crying and Jade West never cries. He sits down beside her but doesn't say a word. Instead, he pulls her into his arms and lets her rest her head on his shoulder while she silently lets out everything she feels. He's pretty sure he smells like oil and dirt, but she doesn't care, she's just happy he's there.
"Don't leave," she murmurs into his shoulders, and her voice is broken and muffled by the material of his shirt. He wonders how much it took her to ask him to stay, and how scared she must be for her to actually voice it out loud.
"I'm right here, babe," he answers her, running his fingers through the silky strands of her hair. His free hand is tracing patterns on her back, soothing her as much as he can with simple, reassuring touches. She presses her face against his neck, wrapping her arms around his waist. "What's wrong? What brought this on? Talk to me," he pleads.
"We're two seconds away from being them."
"Who?" Beck asks, confused.
"Them," she emphasizes, "My parents."
Realization washes over him. Well, more like a tidal wave hits him over the head.
Her parents. Her dysfunctional mom who decided the best possible thing she could do for her eleven year-old daughter was leave her with her stoic father when they got divorced. And her father, that fucking douche. Beck had been helping her deal with the aftermath of her messed up parents ever since he met her. Needless to say, they hated his guts. That's okay though, because the feeling's mutual. They were the ghosts that followed her around, that she just couldn't shake off.
He thinks it kind of fucking amazing how even when nobody else believed in her, Jade was strong enough to believe in herself, to chase her dreams fearlessly. The way she earned her way into Hollywood Arts when so many people just buy their pass.
"We're not them," he grinds out through clenched teeth. "I'm right here, Jade. I'm always going to be here," he vows. She nods, but doesn't say anything else, and he knows she doesn't believe him. He doesn't say anything else though, because he's been with her long enough to know she won't change her mind at the moment. He doesn't tell her that everything's okay or that it's going to get better because it's not and he doesn't know if it's going to be. Instead, he tells her the only thing he can, the only thing he knows, and the only thing he's sure of.
"I love you."
And that he means with his whole heart.
He stands, pulling her up with him, and tells her to freshen up because they're going out. He drives an hour out of Los Angeles, and takes her to a little café up by the mountainside they ran into once when they got lost going to Andre's family's cabin. It small and cozy and completely different from everything that's going on in their lives at the moment. He buys her a cappuccino and her favorite croissant and for the rest of the night, they both pretend that life is beautiful and they have no problems in the world.
Two weeks later he gets a callback from one of his many auditions.
He won the lead role in an indie film and they want to start filming immediately. It pays well, more than what he'd make in ten months with his job as a mechanic, and they're willing to pay him half up front for joining the project, the rest when they're finish. But because this is his life, and he's pretty sure he used up all his good luck when he was in school, there's a catch.
The movie films in Australia, it starts in two days, and he has to go alone.
Jade freaks out when he tells her. She was excited and genuinely happy for him, all the way until he told her the travelling bit. She'd been edgy lately, almost clingy, in a way she never had before. It was like she was terrified that he would run out the door at any moment and never come back.
"Don't do it."
"What?" he's honestly confused at her. This was exactly what they were both waiting for, a chance to show the world what they could do. A shot to break into the business.
"Don't take the role," she deadpans, and her fingers grip onto the chair in front of her so tightly that they start turning white from the exertion.
"It's an amazing opportunity," he says, and he's daring her to give him one solid reason why he shouldn't take it.
"You'll get another one," she snaps. "You can't fucking go to Australia and just leave me here alone."
"It's only for a month!" he exclaims, his voice rising as the anger builds up inside of him and why the fuck is she objecting so much? It's not like they haven't been apart for longer periods of time and they'd been just fine before.
"I don't want you to go!"
"I already accepted it, and I'm not going to cancel."
"It's either me or that movie," she challenges, drawing the ultimatum clearly for him to see.
"You can't make me choose between you and my career! I'm doing this for us, for our future!"
"Bullshit! This isn't for me! It's for you and your dreams of grandeur!"
"Are you fucking serious right now?" he questions her, disbelief obvious in his voice. "I'm not having this conversation with you until you start acting like a rational person!"
"Fine," she snaps, venom dripping from her voice as a cruel smirk forms on her face. "You want this so much? Take the stupid job and do whatever you want. Stay there forever. I don't care! I won't be here when you get back!"
Just like that, in a matter of seconds, they're back to acting like they're fourteen instead of twenty-one.
She grabs her purse and walks out of their apartment, slamming the door behind her. Beck drops down on the sofa and leans his head back against the rest, willing his mind to relax. He knows he should probably go after her, but decides to give her a chance to cool off first. And, of course, there's this whole part of him that's tempted with the opportunity of starting a new life. Away from here and all his problems, away from her.
It's the same one he listened to when he was seventeen.
Two hours later he's panicking. Jade won't pick up her phone and every single crime report Beck has ever read about is crossing through his mind as the day gets darker and there's no word from her. It's pointless to call the rest of their friends, since they all moved out of state as soon as school was out. Nobody stayed in Los Angeles besides him and Jade.
Beck almost drops his phone when it's starts vibrating with an incoming message. Don't worry, she's with me, it reads, and its sender is Tori Vega. Hmm. He hadn't known she was back home, and deducts she must be on some type of semester break from her fancy performing arts school in New York. Anyways, he's glad for it. He much rather Jade spend her time holed up in the Vega household damning him to Hell, then have her roaming around the streets at night by herself.
She doesn't come back that night. Or the next. Or the day he's scheduled to fly out.
He hangs around the apartment, feeling like a loser, waiting for the odd chance that she'll show up. Or call. Either one would work, really. His bags are packed and standing by the door, ready to go as soon as he picks them up. He's sitting down, waiting for so long that he ends up dozing off and misses his destined flight by the time he finally gets to the airport. He has to charm the lady at the checkout line to make an exception and get him a last-minute ticket on the next flight. Ten minutes later and he's set to leave in an hour.
He's been in the waiting room (oh, the irony) for half an hour when his phone starts ringing its familiar tone. Beck hesitates as he reads the display name for the caller. He really shouldn't even answer the call just over how worried she's had him. He's been calling her for days, and now he's expected to answer on the first dial?
Jade.
The screen lights up against his palm again, demanding to be attended.
"Yeah?" he answers, cutting and sharp.
"I'm sorry."
He freezes on his tracks. Was she apologizing to him? He has a horrible feeling that maybe she did something really stupid and his eyes start tracing the room, locating the nearest and fastest exit.
"What's wrong, Jade? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I've just been thinking, and you're right. I can't force you to stay. Go, film the movie, and I'll be waiting at home when you get back."
"Are you sure you're okay?" he asks as the operator begins announcing all passengers must aboard the ship. He's torn between going home to her to fix this, and leaving so he can start to change their lives in general.
"It's okay. You have to go, and I understand. Call me as soon as you land."
"I will, I promise."
"And, Beck, I love you," she finishes, her voice soft and tearful.
"I love you, too, Jade."
With that, he hangs up the phone and boards the plane.
Filming is a breeze. He likes his coworkers and directors. The staff that gets hired as part of the crew all treat him like family, and the girls on set respect his decision when he tells them he has a girlfriend. He calls Jade every night and texts her throughout the day whenever he has a chance. Australia's beautiful, and he keeps buying her little souvenirs from the locals. He's a week into filming when Jade informs him that Tori's keeping her company in their apartment. She quit her job when Beck got paid, and had instead has been writing for herself and her own pleasure at home. But, she was bored and lonely and wanted company, so Tori agreed to stay for the rest of her break.
By the time production's done, he can't wait to go home. They finish four days ahead of schedule, and Beck books the first flight back home.
He's missed everything.
The smell of the scented candles Jade loves lighting up in their living room, Japanese Cherry Blossom. The feel of her soft, feminine, body wrapped around his own. The way he can smell the strawberry scent of her conditioner when he buries his head in her shoulder. The taste of the In-N-Out burgers he's pretty sure he's addicted to. Hell, he even missed the sound of the ice cream trucks driving down the street with the same three songs that everybody in the world already knows.
Everything.
Beck doesn't tell Jade he's coming home early. Instead, he wants to surprise her. So, he sneaks into the apartment, mindful to make as little noise as he possibly can. Which is hard, since he basically trips over himself when his suitcase hits the table by the door. Anyways, he goes inside and she's nowhere to be found. His heartbeat increases and panic begins to creep up his spine, making the tiny hairs in the back of his neck stand up when his search in the kitchen turns up empty. It's not until he reaches their bedroom that he finally finds her, facing away from him and cradling something in the palms of her hands.
He walks towards her and slides his arms around her waist, pulling her body closer to him. She jumps at the contact and spins around so fast that only Beck's quick thinking stops them from crashing on the floor. The color has drained from her face, making her creamy, pale skin tone look almost morbid in comparison.
"Oh, shit. You scared me!" she scolds him, before she smiles and presses her lips against his in a soft kiss. His hands naturally find their way to her hips, resting them there as he takes in the comfort that is Jade and his heart aches in the good kind of way (he's spent the last seven years of his life with her, obviously some of her kinks were going to rub off on him, pun intended).
"I live to torment you," he jokes lightly, and groans when she elbows him in the ribs in response. Yup, it was good to be home. "Filming ended early, and I got the first flight back."
"You should've told me. I probably would have cooked something, or tried to, anyways. Now you're stuck eating reheated Chicken Soup Vega's mom sent me."
Odd.
"Why is Tori's mom sending you food?" He asks, and he thinks that maybe she really has been sick and just didn't want to tell him. His eyes automatically start scanning her face, noticing the slightly rounder cheeks and the dark eye bags, along with the paleness of her face. The weirdest part is that although he's completely sure there's something off about her, her eyes are sparkling. Like, I'm really happy and I don't give a damn sparkling.
He loves that sparkle.
"About that…" she starts, but he's not listening anymore.
He's found something to focus on that's so, so, much more attention-grabbing.
In her hands, she's holding a little piece of clothing. Tiny, fluffy, and yellow. And while Jade holding pieces of clothing that are much too small is usually never something he'd complain about, the fact that it's fluffy and yellow though, that raises all kinds of alarms. When she notices him staring at it and clutches it protectively to her chest, his eyes narrow even more.
What the hell is going on?
"I'm pregnant."
The world stops, and he can't think. Or, actually, he can think. A lot. His mind is racing a mile a minute as it desperately tries to process this brand new piece of information while simultaneously forcing himself to continue breathing, because no, that isn't optional. He's standing there, with his mouth opening and closing as he tries to remember how to form proper words and, you know, speak.
"Um, what?" is his ever, so eloquent response.
"I'm pregnant. Eight weeks. Congratulations, Daddy."
"But… how?"
She arches an eyebrow and cocks her hip, pulling back to stare at him with a glare that would send the bravest of men running for the hills. "Seriously? Think back, moron. Late at night, a wall, and a lack of condoms around two months ago."
Two months, and a wall. Okay. Think, Beck, think. Two months and… oh.
Oh!
They'd both been angry that night. He'd gotten stuck on one of the trucks he was fixing and had to stay later than expected. She'd gotten out of work early because of an argument with her boss's wife, and instead spent the entire evening cooking for him Chicken Alfredo, which happens to be one of the recipes she's absolutely amazing in. When he didn't get home till past ten, she'd been so angry that it pissed him off. He was exhausted and had just wanted to spend some time with her before going to sleep, and all she could do was yell at him for being late. He couldn't understand why she couldn't appreciate that everything he did was for them, for her. Lately, it had felt like the world was against them so much that he'd been hanging onto his sanity by a thread, one she pulled that night.
They argued, and yelled and said things that neither really meant, but had to, to vent out their frustrations. And, in the middle of it all, he pulled her body against his and kissed her, and just didn't stop. They both lost control and had sex against a wall. It was angry and hard and raw and neither one could be bothered to remember that yes, using protection is necessary.
He's kind of really glad that she doesn't mention that their baby was conceived on a night full of angry, violent (and mind-blowing) sex.
It's kind of poetic though, and so them, in a completely messed up sort of way.
He realizes that he's just been staring at her for the past few minutes and that she does not look amused, and it's all it takes for him to react.
"You're making me a daddy," he states, a smile forming on his face as his mind finally catches up with his heart. "Oh, God. I'm making you a mommy!" he exclaims, and she rolls her eyes as he grabs onto her hands and pulls them both down so their sitting on their bed.
"Yeah, that does seem to be the way typical familial relationships are defined," she mocks him, but her voice is soft, playful and teasing, and lacks any type of snark regarding his intelligence. It's just Jade being herself, the girl he loves, and is having his baby.
"Wait," he says as he remembers his initial image of her. "Is it everything okay with both of you? Why are you so pale and why do you look so tired?" he asks, full of concern.
"Gee, thanks, Beck. You really know how to make a girl feel better when she's a few months away from looking like a whale."
"You're beautiful, but I'm serious."
"I'm pregnant, you idiot," she answers like there's some obvious deduction he should have made by now. When she sees that he's none the wiser, she groans before continuing to explain. "I have morning sickness, and almost everything I see or smell makes me want to puke my guts out. Holly's cooking seems to be one of the only things your devil-child lets me keep down."
"Oh. Wait, don't call my baby that!" he replies exasperated.
"She's mine and I'll do as I please."
That perks his attention. "She?"
"Oh, yeah. I don't know yet, but Vega swears that this baby's a girl. I guess it just kind of stuck. It'd be kind of hilarious if it's a boy, though."
"Tori knows?" He tries to keep the slight bitterness at the fact that someone else knew about his baby before him out of his voice.
"Yes, she does. Don't pout; it makes you look like a duck. I found out a week after you left to film and we decided it was better to wait until you got back to tell you."
"You should've told me, I would've come back sooner."
"I know, which is exactly why I didn't. We both had things to get done, and you needed to finish that film. It wasn't right of me to force you to choose and storm out the way I did. I'm totally blaming the hormones though, and you to an extent, because you'd knocked me up already by then."
"I'm sorry I didn't go after you," he apologizes, and he honestly never has lamented something as much as he does that.
"I'm sorry, too. But it's not just about us anymore, there's another person we have to take care of now. We both have to find a new way to deal with out problems so we can work out without all the unnecessary drama. And, I don't know about you, but I want it, I want this."
"I want it too, Jade. I want us, all of us."
"I love it already, you know?" she confesses in an excited whisper, as if she's letting him into a secret of national security. "I don't know if it's a girl or a boy and it's probably the size of a penny but I can feel it, and I love it, so much. I'd never loved, wanted, anyone as much as I do this baby."
He lifts his gaze from the hand that's placed protectively over her still-flat stomach and looks up to find a look of pure love and adoration reflected in her eyes, a tiny smile on her lips and she's so freaking flawless in that moment that it takes his breath away. In that moment, Beck Oliver knows that no matter what happens, he's never going to stop loving her, loving them. He scolds himself for every doubt about her he's ever had, and even though his subconscious is throwing all types of questions regarding his ability to be a dad, he doesn't care.
In that moment, nothing else matters but them.
Exactly the way it always is, and always should be.
Two months after he comes back and find out she's pregnant, the director from the indie film he shot call him, offering him a new role. It's a big-budget film and he'd have a supportive, but important, part. It pays amazingly and he'd be done with it in all of three weeks. And, the best part, is that it films in Hollywood. He'd be able to take the job without having to leave Jade alone and miss out on her progress. He takes the job, obviously, and Jade's more than ecstatic when he tells her all about it. She kisses him and tell her how proud they (baby and her are a packaged deal now) are of him.
Pregnancy has made her softer, more open about her feelings. She's so different, yet still the same. It's like she's finally showing the rest of the world the parts of her that only he'd seen before, and they love her for it.
The money he gets paid is more than enough for her to permanently quit her job and for them to move to a larger apartment in a nicer neighborhood. While he's off shooting during the day, she turns the spare bedroom into a nursery and paints a forest around the walls. As her main theme she sketches butterflies throughout the room. A little known fact about Jade was her very real talent for art, especially drawings. He, on the other hand, would flunk out of a first grade art class. The butterflies are all sorts of colors, and he's amazed at the level of details she adds to each one. In her elegant calligraphy, she writes My Light in the Dark right in the center of it all.
The words pull at the strings in his heart, and he's sure nothing else has ever felt so true.
She had always been his light. The one thing that kept him strong, kept him going, feeling. Really living. Her, and that tiny, little baby growing inside of her now. They were his family, his home. It didn't matter where or with who he was. It didn't matter if they were together or not, if his mind played tricks on him, or if everything else in the world went wrong.
Because Beck Oliver knows that as long as he's with Jade West, his heart would always be home.
Hoped you liked it! Thanks for all your awesome reviews on The Power of Touch!
I wanted to try something a little different out. And, I'm posting a new AU multi-chapter fic soon, so keep an eye out for that!
Have tons of feels later watching Tori Fixes Beck and Jade! I know I'm stoked for that!
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