Disappearing Act
-or-
I bet you didn't think I could do it, did you?

Now as much as Jade West loves Beck Oliver, if you ask her how long she'll think they'll last together, she only has one answer:

They won't.

And she knows how stupid it sounds, trust her. She knows better than anyone. And she knows she should leave him if that's the case, but like she says, she loves him. More than she loves herself.

Right now, at least.

If you ask Beck Oliver the same question, he only has one answer too:

Forever. And he genuinely means it.

He loves her and she loves him and all that crap but that's not exactly the reason he's sure. She's just... Not strong enough to leave him at the end of the day.

He thinks she never will be either.

Maybe it's him being cocky. Maybe it's wishful thinking. But Jade loves him more than she loves herself and sure it's fucked up that he takes advantage of that but god, he really does love her.

He's just not strong enough to leave her either. He's not strong enough to be the good person in this story. He loves himself much more than he could ever love anyone. Including Jade.

Everybody loves you, Beck, and that's not enough for you. It'll never be enough, who's gonna love poor little Jadey?

He guesses that's why he hates himself too.

At the end of senior year, after graduation and heartfelt goodbyes and seeing off Cat and Tori and Andre and Robbie, Jade doesn't move in with Beck.

It's ironic, she realizes. She's spent all of high school practically living in the Silver Streak and how that she officially can, she won't.

Instead, she gets an apartment. It's a small studio with a couch in the middle and a bed in the corner. It's sparsely furnished and it never exactly feels like home because she never exactly finishes unpacking, as if she's working up the courage to run away soon.

Beck starts coming over and then staying over and next thing she knows, he's practically moved in.

One day, they fight, over something or nothing she can't really remember (but she can remember, it was about Tori-fucking-Vega and it's always about Tori-fucking-Vega even if she's across the fucking country at Julliard), but she's screaming and yelling but not crying because she never cries and he's throwing picture frames and glasses at walls and THIS is the Beck that she knows but no one else does: The one that isn't a sea of cool, calm, and collected but is instead an earthquake of shattering glass and trembling hands.

And despite the terror and anger in her, she feels so fucking alive. She vaguely wonders if she's the villain in this story. Is the hero allowed to be cruel sometimes?

"You know what the problem is?" she finally screeches, her dark brown hair in disarray as she practically snarls at him, "No one is enough for you! You're so fucking goddamn empty and you hate yourself!"

"Jade, stop—"

"Don't you fucking tell me to stop! You could have the love of every goddamn person in the fucking world and it wouldn't make a difference because you're so fucking hollow."

And he doesn't know what it is about Jade, this Jade, the Jade that can see through him, that makes him snap but he launches his hand across her face and next thing he knows her lip is bleeding but she didn't fall over, didn't even stumble.

This is Beck&Jade in its entire monstrosity and she decides to kick it up a notch.

If Jadey's the villain she might as well be a good one.

"Get out."

And suddenly he falls silent and his eyes are wide and 'Jade didn't just say that did she no she didn't she wouldn't she loves me' runs through his head but she's looking him in the eye with her electric blue eyes and he swears to god he can feel his flesh melting off of his bones.

And quite frankly, Jade is afraid. His puppy brown eyes are clouded over and he looks furious and hurt and he's only ever hit her once before this but that was enough to make her watch herself around him despite her threats that if he ever did it again, she'd drop him faster than he could register that she's hurt.

"I said 'get out'."

And there's no changing her mind, not this time, says the little voice inside their heads (maybe they've got the same conscience), Jadey's finally grown a spine.

And before he goes, he stands in front of the door, tired and broken down and looking more like the village fool than he ever did the handsome knight.

"I love you," he says, as if it'll change anything.

And that's when Jade decides she's gonna be her own hero, the kind that doesn't need someone else's love to survive but can love herself enough.

"Do you?" It's her only response and she doesn't even look at his face when she shuts her door behind him and she tells herself it's okay, the type of hero that she is doesn't have to be kind all the time.

So he leaves because he honestly doesn't know what else to do.

He comes back the next day (of course he does, that's his fucking girlfriend) and the first thing he notices is a feeling in his stomach, both hollow and too full in a bad way at the same time.

The second thing he notices is writing on her door. It's the same plum purple of the lipstick she wears and the messy scrawl he's so familiar with.

'Do you wanna see a magic trick?'

No no no Jadey, I don't like this game, stop it.

He shakes off the feeling of impending doom and knocks.

Despite being there all the time, Beck doesn't have his own key so he looks under the black welcome mat for the spare when she doesn't answer.

He finds it. With the original and a folded piece of paper. He opens it up and he swears his empty-full stomach drops and his lunch rises up in his throat at those two little words.

Jadey stop, you know I hate magic

And so he panics and opens the door and fuckshitfuck it's fucking empty how the fuck could she do this to him?

Jadey's finally learned how to love herself, Beck. Now you're even emptier than before.

'Abra Kadabra.'