If there was one thing that Jade could really count on to be consistent in her life, one thing that she knew would happen every day, without fail, it was that she and Beck would argue.
She liked that consistency. She appreciated it. And yeah, OK, she enjoyed it. The thing that nobody really understood was that Beck enjoyed it too.
Everyone blamed Jade of course. They all assumed that Jade's constant bickering was something Beck simply put up with. Beck was the golden boy, Jade was the bad girl. But Beck had baiting his girlfriend refined to a science, and his "innocent" comments single-handedly started almost half of their fights, whether he was willing to admit it or not.
Jade knew everyone always wondered why the two of them were still together. Heck, a day rarely went by where someone did just point blank ask Beck why he was with Jade. No one seemed to understand why they continued to be together despite the fact that most of the time they didn't seem very happy. Didn't it bother them that they argued all the time?
Jade would never explain it to anyone else-it was none of their business. But the fights didn't bother her. Ever. Not at all. She knew, and Beck knew, that arguing was their way of communicating, it was their love language. It was like a secret code, a private conversation they were having in front of an entire audience.
Because Beck knew that when Jade was complaining about her coffee being cold, she was really complaining about the crappy first period she'd just endured. And Jade knew that when Beck purposefully made her jealous about Tori he was just reminding her, and himself, that there were other girls, but that he'd always choose Jade no matter what, every time.
Beck knew that when Jade complained about a compliment he'd just given her, she was really saying thank you, in the only way she knew how. Jade knew that when Beck scolded her and told her to be nicer to people, while he wrapped his arm tighter around her waste, it was really an "i love you," because he adored her honesty and he wouldn't want her to be any other way.
It worked for them. It was never boring. It was Beck and Jade. They ran like a well-oiled machine, and she was confident in their system. It wasn't sappy, it didn't make her want to puke rainbows, but it made her feel happy and safe and loved. Even though she would never admit that to anyone.
That was why one night, hanging out in his RV after Beck had a particularly long day rehearsing for a show, alarms went off inside Jade's brain.
"What did you say?" Jade snapped, bolting upright in Beck's bed where they'd been casually cuddled, watching TV.
"Too tired to argue." Beck repeated, his words a lazy mumble. His fingers were still intertwined with Jade's, and he was absent-mindedly drawing circles into her palm with his thumb.
"You can't just decide that we aren't having this conversation." She said, her voice getting louder, and her heart beating a little faster in her chest.
"Mmmmm, OK babe," Beck said with a yawn, closing his eyes. After a few seconds he peeked one eye open and tugged on her hand, urging her to lay back down. "Why're you so far away?"
Jade's fury was building. She yanked her hand out of Beck's and actually stood up off the bed, crossing her arms. "We were discussing something. Important."
"Yeah, what was that again?" He didn't sound sarcastic, just genuinely curious.
Jade paused, racking her brain for whatever she'd been so angry about a second ago, but Beck's new unwillingness to fight with her was clouding her memory. Instead of admitting that she'd forgotten whatever 'important' thing they'd been discussing, Jade changed the subject.
"You can't just shut-me-up and expect me to be silent whenever you feel like it!"
Beck rolled his head over and looked up at her with puppy dog eyes, and he nodded. "OK." He invited her back onto the bed patting it with his palm.
"Stop…placating me!" Jade was at a full blown shout now, and she wasn't sure exactly why, but she'd stopped being introspective about her yelling a long time ago. This was what she did. This was what they did. They screamed and yelled and prodded and poked until they were kissing and hugging and entangled in one another. Arguing was their default. It was practically the foundation of their relationship.
Except when Beck refused to do it.
"You love being placated." Beck said, and he actually smiled.
"Yeah…well…I…You aren't actually supposed to do it!"
"Babe," he said, patting the bed again, "can we just watch Full House now?"
Jade grabbed her jacket off the bed and stomped out of the RV, causing the whole place to shake.
As she slammed the door, she heard Beck call "Bye…love you…see you tomorrow."
He didn't even scold her for slamming the door.
Jade spent the rest of that night pacing around her room, wielding her scissors. She cut up 4 shoe boxes, an empty lotion bottle, some coke cans, and a pair of broken headphones before she decided to go to sleep, because it would all be better in the morning. Right?
When Jade walked in to Hollywood Arts the next day she wasn't sure whether to stomp right up to Beck and start yelling at him or ignore him altogether. She was spared the decision when he caught her staring at him, chatting outside his locker with Andre and Tori. He waved her over, and playful grin on his face.
She walked over to him, dragging her feet a little, still torn about how best to punish him for last night. When she got close enough, he reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her to him, letting his arm rest comfortably around her shoulder.
"Morning." he said into her ear.
She grunted in response.
"Someone didn't have their coffee." he chuckled.
Andre laughed, "Well in that case, I think I have better places to be. I don't want to experience the wrath of a coffee-less Jade." Jade rolled her eyes. Andre picked up his backpack from the ground and slung it over his right shoulder. "Later y'all."
"Bye, Andre" Tori said cheerfully. "You know, I should probably get going too, I'm supposed to meet Sikowitz before class to talk about an extra credit assignment."
"Oh no," Jade said sarcastically, "is someone having a hard time in acting class?" Her words were venom, and even she was surprised at how hateful she sounded today.
Tori shrugged it off and grinned at Beck, "Well, my grade was kind of negatively affected when I got Rex sucked into that machine." Beck chuckled, nodding. "Sikowtiz offered to let me make up for it. Later guys."
"Later." Beck responded.
Jade grunted.
Beck laughed at her, moving his hand from her shoulder to stroke through her hair, "Come on," he took a few steps toward the drink machine, "let's get you some caffeine."
"I don't need caffeine." She snapped. "I need for the people in this school to be less pathetically uninteresting."
He continued to march her closer to the machine. "Do you want diet or regular?" He was pulling change out of his pocket, counting quarters in the palm of his hand.
"Diet?" she asked, glad he'd given her the opportunity to yell at him. "What are you trying to say?"
"So, regular then." He started putting money in the machine, one of his arms still slung over her shoulder.
"God, Beck, if you think I'm fat, just say so."
Normally, Beck would have chimed in by now. He would have defended himself against Jade's irrational jabs, he would have walked away, something.
But today he just kept putting money in the machine, stroking her hair.
Jade felt like she was losing her mind.
Beck pressed the button and pulled out her regular soda from the machine, handing it to her with a smile.
"What is wrong with you?" Jade said.
"So you did want the diet." he said, raising his eyebrows.
Jade pulled herself out of his grip and shoved the soda in his hands, storming off in one of her famous rages.
By lunch time Jade had gotten herself so worked up, she felt like she was preparing for battle. She was going to fix this. She was ready to pull out all the stops.
She spotted Beck sitting with Tori, Andre, Robbie, and Cat and slumped down by herself a few tables away from them. Beck came over a few minutes later and sat in the chair next to her, greeting her with a kiss.
He glanced at the empty table in front of her. "Hungry?" he asked.
She shrugged and glared at him. "It is lunch time. Hungry would make sense."
He nodded, but looked annoyingly unruffled by her sarcasm. Standing up he asked, "You want pizza? Salad? Bagel? Burrito?"
She continued to glare. "What are you a waiter now?"
He smiled. "I am a man of many talents."
"Debatable." She said, crossing her arms.
Jade wasn't sure why she even said that. It wasn't remotely true. Beck was seriously gifted, and he knew that. So it kind of killed her when she saw a flicker of hurt cross his eyes before he replaced it with an indulgent smile, and held up his hands in defeat. "I'm gonna get you a burrito."
As Jade relived the conversation in her head, feeling a tinge of regret at her words she realized this whole thing had gone too far. Jade didn't normally sit around and think about herself or examine her actions. She acted. She reacted. She didn't like rehashing her behavior because that was when she'd find herself involved in sappy lifetime moments of quasi-friendship with Tori Vega or doing something nice for Robbie Schapiro.
But now, here she was, feeling guilty of all things, because she'd done what she and Beck were supposed to do. She'd argued. But the whole thing was off-kilter, she realized because Beck wasn't pushing back. and now, Jade wasn't just bickering, she was being harsh. She was being mean. They weren't supposed to be mean. They could fight for hours about nothing but they weren't supposed to hurt each other. That wasn't part of the deal.
Beck brought her back the burrito, and seemed to be still in a good mood despite everything. "Gotta run," he said, "I'm helping Tori with that project for Sikowitz. Come over later?" he asked, dashing off back towards the school.
Jade shrugged in response. She suddenly felt exhausted. She expected the anger that she'd been harboring all day to come back up, but it didn't. For the first time, Beck was spending time alone with Tori Vega, and Jade felt absolutely no need to say anything about it.
She stared at her burrito for the rest of lunch, unable to convince herself to take a bite out of it. When the bell finally rang, she picked it up, still wrapped in it's foil container and chucked it in the trashcan, hearing it fall to the bottom with a satisfying plop.
Although she debated long and hard about whether to go over to Beck's RV that night, Jade wasn't surprised at all to find herself on his doorstep before she even realized she'd made a conscious decision.
She didn't knock.
"Finally." Bade said, as Jade walked in, glancing up from his seemingly permanent position on the bed. "Full House is on. I know you wanna watch it." he teased.
Jade walked across the RV and flicked off the TV set.
"So, you don't want to watch it." Beck said with a succinct nod.
Jade didn't respond, she merely sat down on the bed beside him, facing away, staring intently at her hands. She had no clue what to say. She hated that.
Beck, it seemed, was finally starting to pick up on the fact that something was wrong. He placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. "Jade…" he started softly, but apparently he didn't know what to say either.
After a few minutes Jade relaxed a little and moved fully onto the bed, turning to face Beck. Her inability to speak was starting to piss her off, and the more pissed off she became the more she thought of things to say until she finally just burst out, "You broke it!"
Beck jerked at her words, looking startled and confused, but also relieved that she'd finally said something.
"I broke it?" He looked around innocently, like he was looking for the object he'd broken.
Jade stood up, wanting more room to talk with her hands. She gestured wildly, her voice careening into a full-blown shout. "It. Us. This." She pointed back and forth between the two of them. "You've been acting weird since last night, and you broke it."
Beck looked even more surprised and his eyebrows were pressed towards the top of his head. "I've been acting weird?"
"Yes!" she shouted, glad he'd finally admitted it. "So, stop it!"
"Jade," Beck looked slightly amused, "how have I been acting weird."
"You…well…you weren't…you didn't…I couldn't…" Jade stopped her ramble, realizing she could not possibly tell Beck what was wrong without sounding completely, batshit insane.
Beck looked concerned now. Jade wasn't one to hold back, to not say what was on her mind. She knew she'd given more away with her little stutters and her lack of confidence than she could have if she'd written on a book on her thoughts and feelings over the last 24 hours.
"Jade…" he was using that voice. The soft, sweet, gentle one that she only allowed him to use when they were alone and when she could actually admit to herself that she wanted, ok needed to know that he loved her.
She sat back down on the bed, facing the wall, and she felt Beck scootch closer to her, pulling her back against his chest. He rested his head on her shoulder. "What's up?"
Jade felt herself blushing. She hated talking like this. It was too close. Too open. It made her feel naked. That was why they had their well-oiled machine in the first place. That was why she spoke through jibes and shouts and taunts.
"You weren't arguing with me." She admitted quietly. Hating how irrational it was, but relieved to have said it nonetheless. "You weren't pushing back, you weren't storming off, you were just…" She trailed off.
"Jade, you realize you are the only girlfriend on the planet who would actually be upset that I was super nice to you for a day."
"You weren't being nice." Jade retorted back, feeling more like her old self. "You were just putting up with me."
"And that's a bad thing because…?" Beck was playing with her hair, twirling it in his fingers gently.
Jade let herself relax into him a little more.
"You shouldn't just put up with me. This is supposed to be both us. You and me. Push and shove. Beck and Jade. If you just put up with me…it makes them all right."
"Who?"
"Everyone who thinks you're too good for me."
"Since when do you care what anyone else thinks?"
"I don't." Jade said quickly, but she wasn't sure it was the truth.
They sat in silence for a little while, Beck chin resting lightly on her shoulder, his hand in her hair.
"Jade." Beck said. "Did it ever occur to you that sometimes you just don't make me want to start an argument with you? That what you say doesn't make me mad?"
"I always make you mad."
"You often make me mad."
"You always want to argue with me."
"Only when it's fun." Beck corrected.
"It stopped being fun?"
Beck chuckled, and she could feel him shaking his head.
"Babe," he pushed her away slightly so that she could turn around to look at him, "I love you," he grinned at her sheepishly, "and sometimes no matter what you do, I'm just going to be happy you're around." He shrugged, like it was simple.
Jade scowled pondering his words for a second, and then decided she'd done far too much pondering in the last day, so she cut it out.
"Fine." she said, and she was done with it.
"Fine?" He asked, looking disbelieving and amused.
"Fine." Jade repeated, a grin sweeping across her face.
He kissed her then, and they got lost in each other for a while, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, Jade didn't feel like the world was spinning off it's axis. When they finally came up for air, Beck reached out and turned the TV back on and Jade snuggled up next to him, resting her head on his chest.
"Just don't do this nice, indulgent thing forever." Jade muttered. "It makes me sick."
Beck laughed. "Don't worry, I doubt I'll be able to keep it up for very long."
Jade raised her eyebrow. "I didn't realize I was so hard to deal with."
"Well, you're a little overly sensitive."
"I'm sensitive? You're the one who has to come rescue all the poor helpless Hollywood Arts students from me every time you think I'm being mean."
"Yeah, well, they're sensitive too."
"Beck?" Jade said
"Yeah?" He was running his hand absentmindedly up and down her arm, letting his fingers graze her skin.
"I love you." Jade said, and Beck pulled her a little closer.
Later on, Beck would get hungry. Jade would want pepperoni even though Beck would want vegetarian. Jade would be sick of watching tv even though it was Beck's favorite show. Beck would want to go to sleep even though Jade wanted to run lines for the play she was auditioning, and they'd fight and shout and moan and whine.
But for now…they were content to stay lost in each each other. Just for a little while longer.