Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious.
Summary: The genesis of Beck Oliver through trials and tribulations, winning and losing, and everything in between. Beck-centric, BeckJade, oneshot
Okay, so this is kinda completely random. I just wanted to write a piece on Beck. It's a bit darker than my other Victorious fanfiction, but I just wanted to play in that sandbox haha. It's pretty much AU or whatever as well. Anyway, I hope that y'all enjoy this! I really liked writing this so I hope that everyone likes reading it!
Continuity Error
When Beck is born, everyone stops by the hospital.
The boy with the full head of dark hair and the even darker eyes is captivating.
"Beautiful little baby."
"What a lovely child."
And he will become so much more.
When Beck is one, he can't contain himself.
He is a happy baby, smiling and grinning and laughing at many things.
He is one year old, and he is just beginning.
When Beck is two, cake is his favorite thing.
He smashes the birthday cake - in the shape of Winnie the Pooh - all over himself, coating his chubby arms in the yellow icing. His mother smiles at him and coos encouragement in their seedy little house while their father takes pictures of him and some of the neighbor children and his cousins.
He is two years old, and he just loves cake.
When Beck is three, he wants to be a lion.
He wants to be just like Simba and roam the African Serengeti and roar and talk to all the Pumbas and Timons and Nalas. He wants to make his father proud and fight and be the best he can be.
He is three years old, content.
When Beck is four, his parents are happy.
At least, he thinks they are. The first memory that he can actually recall involves his father and mother taking him to the park. It truly seemed like everything was happy then, unknowing about what actually lay beneath the surface.
His father pushes him on the swing. His mother joins him on the see saw. He meets a boy named Robbie and they become fast friends, even if Robbie's parents give his parents odd looks.
He doesn't notice.
He is four years old, after all.
When Beck is five, Robbie becomes his best friend.
They've played on and off for a while, meeting at the playground. Beck sometimes wanders out of the house because mommy and daddy like to yell at one another for some reason. He pretends they're playing a game, but he knows that there is something else.
Robbie is always at the park with his babysitter. His parents are always busy, so the two of them bond.
Robbie lets Beck borrow one of his dinosaurs. Beck just smiles at the new gesture. No one has ever let him borrow anything before.
He is five years old, and has made a friend.
When Beck is six, he meets Andre Harris.
Andre is in his preschool, and he likes to play the piano and sing and dance. Beck thinks that's the coolest thing he's ever seen. People call Andre a 'prodigy' - whatever that word means - and dote on him.
He is six years old, and he now has a dream.
When Beck is seven, he sees too much.
A slap here, a punch there, a kick and scratches of too-long nails. Yelling and cursing and name calling. Abuse, that's the word they've taught him at school.
He hates to think of it that way even now, but what other word could it be?
His mother a victim, his father a victim. Each doing it to one another. It circles and circles like a buzzard waiting on an animal's final moments.
He's frightened that it could soon escalate to include him.
He is seven years old, not stupid.
When Beck is eight, he breaks his leg.
He was climbing a tree - playing pirates with Andre and Robbie and some new kid named Sinjin - and he was pretty sure he was the best pirate ever when a branch broke and he tumbled to the ground.
There was a snap and a crack and Beck's screaming louder than he ever has before and wanting his mother and father but they don't come. Andre's mother is crying and worried and she rushes him to the emergency room. She tries to call his parents. They don't answer.
They fit him for a cast and tell him to get a lot of rest. Andre's mother drives him home and walks him to the door. Gives him a kiss on the forehead. Robbie and Andre both look upset. Sinjin looks intrigued.
Beck limps on the awkward crutches through the door after waving a final goodbye to them. They've been in the emergency room since five that afternoon and now it is well after eleven at night.
His mother is passed out on the couch, dressed in some kind of short skirt and fishnets and Beck doesn't know what to make of it but she's been dressing that way a lot lately so he thinks it can't be too bad.
He is eight years old, his leg is broken, and no one in his family will notice for days.
When Beck is nine, he meets Cat Valentine.
She's got the brightest hair he's ever seen and the brightest smile and she is his first girl friend. Well, not girlfriend, but his first friend that is a girl. It's a strange feeling because he assumed all girls were uptight like his cousins but Cat is sweet and nice and bakes them cookies with her mother and everything is okay.
He is nine years old, and he doesn't think girls are so bad.
When Beck is ten, his father doesn't come home.
There isn't much to say in the matter except his mother keeps wearing her skimpy clothes and coming home with more bruises and the scent of alcohol and smoke clinging to her. Sometimes she brings men home. Men that aren't his father.
He is ten years old, and vows not to be like his mother - or his father, for that matter.
When Beck is eleven, he decides to stay at Robbie's house.
He doesn't know why, but Robbie's parents are always asking him to come over and he does. They don't ever complain and never ask him to leave. Never ask when his parents are going to pick him up. They let him stay for weeks on end.
When he arrives home for the first time in months, his mother slaps him.
He is eleven years old…and there is really nothing more to say.
When Beck is twelve, it finally happens.
He comes home from Robbie's after one of his months-on-end stays, smiling a bit too much in a bit of the wrong way. His mother is drunk and there's a strange man leaving the house as he turns the corner. He lopes in the doorway - because, really, his mom hardly notices when he's there or not - and doesn't expect to have a bottle smash into his face.
He cries out, screams, grabs his face and notices to his horror that a few of the shards have pierced his skin, sticking out in odd angles. He feels tears stream from his eyes and hears his mother berate him and he goes back out the door to Robbie's house. Where else can he go? He's afraid that Robbie would turn him away - he had just left after all - or think him a freak, but really…he has no other place to go.
But Robbie opens the door, sees his friend's bloody mess of a face, and lets him in. His voice is high pitched and he shows him to his parents, who are both doctors, thank goodness.
The biggest cut receives stitches, it goes along his jaw line and is wrapped in some bandages. All of it will scar, and it is nothing compared to the feeling of not being safe in his own home.
He is twelve years old, and not supposed to be so alone.
When Beck is thirteen, he meets Tori Vega.
It's before she auditions for Hollywood Arts, before she makes it shine all over the place. Before all of that. She's just a girl with short wavy hair and too-big glasses, dancing around in the playground and singing to herself. She is playing with Cat and a girl with her arms crossed and a pout on her features.
He is thirteen years old, and - without knowing it - has also met Jade West for the first time.
When Beck is fourteen, his father comes home.
He's thinner now. He's got a few more scars around his face, and his nose is crooked. Beck doesn't think he's ever seen a man more pathetic in his life.
He tries to hug Beck. The boy can smell the filthy stench of liquor on his breath. Wrinkles his nose.
He is fourteen years old, and he punches his father in the face.
When Beck is fifteen, he swears off alcohol.
Not because he has a bad experience. Not because he himself had drunk too much that it is ridiculous. No, nothing like that.
He sees how his father is, sees how his mother acts. Neither are happy, and they drown themselves in drink. Fighting, shouting, screaming, yelling follows it. Every single time. No time is different. Even when his father returns, saying he's changed, he hasn't. They all lie. Everyone does.
They spend all their money on it. They hardly have anything nice. They hit him and kick him and smash bottles in his direction. Blame everything on him.
Funny how it took him this long to swear off the stuff. He supposes it's because he really didn't admit that his parents had such a problem until now. He sees kids his age drinking and, really, it's the most disturbing thing he's ever laid eyes on.
He is fifteen years old, and he swears that the day he drinks will be the day he becomes like them (and that will not happen).
When Beck is sixteen, he auditions for Hollywood Arts.
They let him in. Apparently, he is quite good looking and a talented actor and dancer. He is glad for this. Robbie auditions as well, with his ventriloquist act. And he can sing as well - something that he has been hiding from Beck all this time.
They both get in - and Andre and Cat. He is more pleased with this than he can express.
It's the most beautiful thing in the world, the school. He tries to spend as much time as he can there. He's moved out of the house, already. But not really. He's just put his dad's old, raggedy RV in the backyard. Locks the doors at night. Still stinks of the liquor and vomit that was produced by his father while he was away. It's not a home yet but it's getting there with the money he gets from the odd job here and there. Soon, he'll move away for good, but not after he's out of school.
On his first day, he meets a girl.
A girl with dark hair and a darker disposition. Someone whose eyes have seen far too much. Someone who he saw before with Tori Vega and Cat in the park. She's his age, and very pretty. He doesn't believe he's been attracted to anyone before - much too busy with other things - and he thinks that she's the prettiest thing he's ever seen.
She growls at him a bit and tells him to move out of the way.
He grins.
He is sixteen years old, and he just might like this Jade West.
When Beck is seventeen, he sees her tattoo.
At first, he's shocked. Then, bewildered. He doesn't know what the three black X's mean, etched on the back of her neck, hidden by the hair that is always kept down. In one of the odd moments, she pulls her hair to the side and twists it in her fingers and granting him view of yet another one of her secrets.
"What's that?" he asks, his voice incredulous.
"My tattoo, genius."
"…yeah, but what does it mean?"
Jade turns to him and her eyes flash with meaning, "Straight edge."
She says nothing else and walks away. Beck is bewildered.
Later that night, when he looks up the term, he decides that he loves Jade West.
He is seventeen years old, and he hasn't been happier.
When Beck is eighteen, he graduates.
It's a great affair, with all the friends he's made over the years. Kind Tori, cool Andre, sweet Cat, neurotic Robbie, and the enigmatic Jade.
Beck finds that he just can't contain himself, and when they throw their caps in the air, he grabs Jade by the arm and pulls her to him, mashing his lips against hers with such force that she is taken aback by the whole thing. She doesn't pull away, just presses her nails into the skin of his wrist in encouragement.
He is eighteen years old. Oh, yes, he is eighteen.
When Beck is nineteen, his mother dies.
Liver failure.
The funeral is small - not many people knew her. His father goes. Drunk.
Jade is there with him, though, and she holds his hand throughout.
"I had no idea," she tells him.
"Didn't want anyone to have an idea," he replies.
He is nineteen years old, but feels four again.
When Beck is twenty, he gets his first leading role.
It's in some cheesy adaptation of a popular book and all the girls are mooning over him but he could care less about that. He just wants to be able to act. He could care less about the shallow fans that only see his movies because he apparently looks good.
He takes Jade to the premiere of the movie and she manages to keep the girls at bay.
He is twenty years old, and his star is on the rise.
When Beck is twenty one, he gets the tattoo.
It's nothing completely off-putting, just a band of interlinking X's around his upper arm.
He is twenty one years old, and that tattoo defines him.
End.