First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed my story! It means a lot to me and all of the encouragement is really helpful. A few people left requests for specific episodes, and I'll try to get to those ASAP because they sound like fun – there's just a few more episodes that I'd like to do first, because I've had them in my mind for a while.
Also, sorry it's been a few days – I was on vacation with no internet. I'm pretty busy this summer, but I'm going to be travelling a lot before going back to college, so updates might be less frequent. However, I promise I'll continue to add new chapters when I get a chance.
This particular piece takes place during the episode Robarazzi. For some reason, I find it a lot easier to write from Beck's perspective than from Jade's (maybe because his character isn't as strongly-defined as Jade's, so the "in-character" boundaries are a bit looser), so this is, for the most part, Beck's perspective. However, there is some of Jade's, and one part from the POV of someone else entirely (which was really fun to write). Hope you like it!
…
"It's Robarazzi! Your home for up-to-the-minute, tasty gossip about the students at Hollywood Arts."
"Oh my god," muttered Tori. Beck felt Jade and Andre tense as well. Cat alone seemed impervious to Robbie's words, humming cheerfully as she paged through a catalogue.
"Next on Robarazzi: Tori Vega's pimple—shrinking…or growing?" The image zoomed in on a picture of Tori's annoyed face. As he watched Tori self-consciously grab her chin, Beck teasingly reached to poke her face. She swatted him away with a "don't touch it!" and he retreated, hoping that he hadn't annoyed Jade by messing with Tori. Fortunately, his girlfriend's eyes were still focused on the screen.
"Also, does Andre Harris have a ketchup problem?" The camera panned in to a shot of Andre holding a gigantic ketchup bottle. Okay, Beck conceded, that one was bizarre. They all looked at Andre, but he looked just as bewildered as everyone else.
"Does Sinjin Van Cleef steal famous teeth? Probably," Robbie continued. Beck knew he wasn't alone in raising his eyebrows thoughtfully; so far, this "rumor" was the only one that sounded remotely close to being true. By this point, he knew enough about the kid to understand that anything, no matter how bizarre, was plausible when it came to Sinjin Van Cleef.
Beck snapped back into the present when he saw a heart-shaped photograph of himself and Jade on the screen, holding hands. As they watched, the heart snapped down the middle, and the background music became more dramatic. "And finally…is it splitsville for Beck and Jade?" Robbie asked in a scandalized tone. Considering how poorly thought-out the rest of the stories had been, Beck wasn't particularly concerned by this "news," but he knew that his girlfriend would be. He glanced at her and stifled a chortle at the sudden fury etched across her face. If this wasn't a perfect opportunity to get under Jade's skin a little bit, nothing was.
"All this, and tons more…on Robarazzi! Starring Robbie Shapiro."
The end of the broadcast was cut short as Tori smacked the computer's power button. "He's a dead man," she declared, standing up angrily. Andre and Jade stood up as well.
"Beck and I aren't splitting up!" Jade's indignant voice nearly caused Beck to laugh again, before he reminded himself that he was an actor and restrained himself.
"Well," he began in a mock-thoughtful tone.
Jade didn't even give him a moment to breathe. "Dude," she said pointedly, and he raised his hands in mock-surrender.
"Kidding."
"I use an appropriate amount of ketchup!" Judging by Andre's tone, Beck was the only one who wasn't really bothered by Robbie's latest broadcast. Well, excluding Cat, who was excitedly perusing the Sky Store catalogue and probably hadn't heard a word that Robbie had said. Vaguely, Beck wondered why Robbie hadn't bothered to include Cat's new shopping obsession on his blog.
"Let's go fix this right now." The words had barely left Tori's mouth when everyone began to grab their belongings. One second later, Beck found himself following Jade out of the room. "Cat, are you coming?"
Distantly, Beck heard Cat start jabbering about floating underwear. Without bothering to look at the others' stricken faces, he turned and followed Jade and Andre down the hall.
For Robbie's sake, Beck hoped that Robbie was prepared to face the wrath of his friends.
….
"Hey!" Tori shouted as she barged through the door. All eyes turned as the four of them marched into the room.
"I don't use any more ketchup than the next guy," Andre bellowed. Next to him, Jade crossed her arms, surveying the room contemptuously. Beck reminded himself to look annoyed as Robbie began to stammer a reply.
"Whoa, whoa, hold on, guys, we're in the middle of taping my show!"
Robbie's feeble protests were cut short by Jade's loud voice. "Beck and I are not splitsville!" she declared, pointing a finger dangerously at Robbie.
Beck couldn't resist. "Well," he began, but once again he didn't get any further as Jade wheeled around to face him.
"Is there something you want to talk about?" she demanded, incensed.
He smiled and bit back a laugh; Jade made these things too easy. "Kidding," he reassured her, patting her shoulder lightly.
Robbie suddenly turned and gestured to the younger students holding cameras. "Are you guys getting this? Cuz this is really great stuff!" he said eagerly. Sinjin nodded, looking transfixed (actually, he was looking directly at Jade, but Beck was used to this by now, so he ignored it). Despite his earlier calm, Beck found himself beginning to get annoyed at Robbie. He'd clearly upset his friends, and yet he was busy trying to get more humiliating footage?
"Robbie!" shouted Tori. "You're not going to have any friends left if you keep exploiting us for your dumb blog."
"Okay," said Robbie. For a second, it seemed as if he was agreeing with her, but then he turned and began to write on his board. Really? Beck thought, watching the curly-haired kid scribble anxiously about "Tori freaking out."
Tori and Andre simply looked incredulous; Jade looked murderous. Beck wondered if Robbie was really as stupid as he was acting. Suddenly, they all started talking at once.
"Is he serious?" Tori asked in disbelief. Jade laughed derisively; Beck threw up his hands and asked, "really?" Pretty soon they were all yelling furiously. Beck couldn't blame Robbie for backing up defensively, but he was angry at the sight of the cameras still rolling. Feeling pressure against his back, Beck turned just as Jade whirled around, and the two of them began yelling as overeager idiots thrust cameras into their faces.
"Stop!" Tori shouted suddenly. They all turned and glared at Robbie as Tori advanced on him.
"This is your last chance. Are you gonna stop this Robarazzi thing or not?"
Despite looking like a deer caught in the headlights, Robbie still shook his head mulishly, and Tori turned angrily.
"I think we're done here." She swept out of the room, with Andre following closely behind her. With one last glare at Robbie, Jade grabbed Beck's arm pointedly, and Beck followed her obediently as she stomped out of the studio.
…
Jade was sitting in the passenger seat, eyes closed, when she felt the convertible suddenly turn off of the road. Opening her eyes, she saw that they had pulled into a small, well-lit parking lot. A flashing sign nearby listed the names of several movie titles (the bright letters burned Jade's retinas), and people streamed in and out of the doors of the building. Jade groaned internally. She really, really wasn't in the mood to go to the movies.
Beck smiled at her, clearly unaware of her dismay. "I thought maybe we could see a movie or something since we don't really have much homework. You know, instead of just going back to my RV and watching Full House."
Jade didn't mean to sound accusatory, but her words came out that way anyway. "You didn't tell me we were going to the movie theatre." She winced as Beck's face fell slightly, but he straightened almost instantly.
"It'll be really dark in the theatre," he teased, clearly trying to get her to lighten up.
Jade remained silent. She felt guilty; contrary to what most people seemed to think, she didn't mean to be a gank all of the time. She liked spending time with Beck, and normally she would have jumped at the chance to cozy up to him in a dark room for a few hours.
"It's not that," she said, and then stopped. Jade hated whining – it implied that a person was weak and helpless – but she couldn't help the whine that snuck into her tone as she pleaded with Beck.
"It's just—"
She couldn't think of what to say. How would she explain to Beck that her day had been really awful, and sitting in his RV watching Full House (no matter how much she made fun of him for watching it) was exactly what she felt like doing? She tried to think of something to say, but was distracted by Beck's hair, which was enticingly dark and shiny against the night sky. Jade fought the impulse to run her hand through it as she struggled to think of a reasonable argument.
"Come on," Beck said impatiently. "Let's just go; it'll be fun." Jade could tell that he was annoyed; he had probably been planning this out all day. She felt bad at ruining his plans, but she really, really wasn't in the mood for it.
She meant to open her mouth and calmly, rationally explain why she didn't want to see a movie. What came out, however, was a whine so desperate that even Jade cringed internally as it left her mouth. "Nooooooo," she protested, draping herself against the back of the seat.
"Why not?" Jade recognized his "calm, placating" tone of voice and felt bad. She tried to think of an excuse. How could she make the thought of hooking up in a dark theatre sound less appealing?
She decided to go for the "gross-out" factor. "Cuz—I didn't shower this morning, and I had tuna fish for lunch, and—" Out of the corner of her eye, Jade noticed something moving. She whipped her head around.
"There's a dude in the backseat!"
….
Jason hadn't believed his luck when he saw Beck Oliver's convertible turn into the movie theatre parking lot. Though he and his fellow freshmen were just getting to the theatre, Jason knew he couldn't turn away from such a golden opportunity.
"I'll see you later," he hissed to his friends, grabbing his video-camera. Jason knew that Robbie would freak if Jason actually pulled this off.
Tiptoeing behind the convertible, Jason watched carefully. There was a brown-haired girl in the front seat, and for a second Jason thought it was Tori Vega (now that would be a good scoop). After a moment, though, he realized it was just Beck's girlfriend, Jade. Still good material.
He could hear the two of them talking in low voices, but he couldn't make out any of the words. Mentally cursing, Jason looked around to see how he could get closer. Suddenly, he had a stroke of inspiration: if he could somehow get into the car, he'd have a perfect shot. Beck's car was a convertible, so theoretically, all Jason needed to do was climb over the backseat when they weren't looking—he thanked God that his camcorder didn't have an annoying blinking light to give him away—and stay very, very still.
As he snuck closer, Jason realized that Jade's eyes were closed as she leaned back against the seat. If Beck would only turn his head an inch to the left—
It happened, and Jason seized his chance. Beck turned his head forward, looking exasperated, and Jason slipped silently over the door and into the back seat.
Miraculously, he went unnoticed, most likely because Jade's aggravated voice drowned out the sound of his body hitting the back seat. Jason paused excitedly to begin taping. Jade actually sounded human—was that distress in her voice?—and completely unlike her usual bossy self. He knew that all of the other students wondered how Beck stayed with Jade when she was such a bitch during school. Here was his chance to get the inside scoop on their relationship, and discover whether Jade truly did act differently outside of school.
He zoomed in on Beck's face. "Come on. Let's just go, it'll be fun," Beck pleaded.
Back to Jade. "Noooooo," she moaned. Score. With footage of bitchy, demanding, self-assured Jade acting like a tired, helpless child, Jason would be a school celebrity.
"Why not?" asked Beck. Jason zoomed in on Jade to get her response.
"Because—I didn't shower this morning, and I had tuna fish for lunch—"
What the hell? thought Jason, albeit gleefully. This was bizarre, but it was good. He was so surprised by her response that he didn't notice that she had paused and was staring right at him.
"There's a dude in the backseat!" she shrieked.
Beck's angry voice joined hers. "What the—hey man, what are you doing?"
"Get out!" Jade snapped, her voice high-pitched with fury. The two of them began to shout angrily (Jason wondered if they practiced yelling over each other, since they fought so often).
Amidst shrieks of "what's wrong with you!" and "get out of my car!" Jason vaulted himself out of the back seat, still filming. "Yeah, you better run! I'm gonna kill you!" he heard Jade call after him, but it was too late; they couldn't do anything now. Clutching his camcorder in his hands, Jason sprinted into the movie theatre, smiling triumphantly. Robbie was going to love this.
…
As the scrawny freshman scampered out of sight, Beck stopped yelling; after one more angry sentence, Jade did the same. They both paused in the darkness, breathing deeply.
Jade spoke first. "What the hell was that stupid kid doing? Seriously. What the eff?"
"Was that even a boy? I couldn't tell because of the hair."
After a moment, Jade answered, "I think it was a boy." Her voice was still raised, but he could tell her shock and anger was wearing off. "It's that stupid freshman, Jason something. He works for Robbie."
Beck suddenly remembered why the kid had looked familiar: he had been one of the people shoving a camera into their faces the other day when they'd attacked Robbie. Apparently, Robbie's spies were now following Beck and Jade around to get pictures of them. Great, he thought. How much had the kid heard?
Apparently Jade was thinking the same thing. "He heard me say I didn't shower this morning," she hissed. "And the tuna fish thing! What if the whole school sees that?" She wrung her hands anxiously, and Beck could see that beneath her anger, she was actually worried that others would see the video, making her look less than threatening. Jade West didn't do vulnerable or whiny or idiotic; she confidently demanded respect from the masses. Beck knew that an embarrassing public video would rattle her, even though she would probably act as if she couldn't care less about it.
"I'm sure it won't make it online," he reassured her, rubbing her arm comfortingly. As he reached for her, something else crossed his mind.
"Babe? Uh…why were you telling me about that anyway?" Jade looked confused at his question, so he elaborated. "You know, the shower and tuna fish thing?"
Suddenly Jade looked uncomfortable, and Beck remembered how unlike herself she'd sounded earlier, whining about the movie. "I just thought—you know, in dark theatres, things happen sometimes, and that it was only fair to warn you because maybe you wouldn't be in the mood to be in a dark theatre with me if you knew about the whole 'shower and tuna fish thing,' and—"
"Jade." Beck cut across her rambling. "What is the real reason you don't want to see a movie?" She opened her mouth to protest, but he continued. "I know you showered this morning. Your hair was wet when you got in the car."
"Oh," she said after a moment. Suddenly she looked sheepish. "Well, okay, I just thought that, you know, hooking up in the back of a dark movie theatre would sound a lot less…good…like that," she finished lamely.
Beck raised his eyebrows. He wasn't used to his blunt, direct girlfriend skirting around issues with him. He was bummed that she hadn't liked his surprise trip to the movies, but they'd missed the start of the film because of that stupid kid anyway, so he might as well find out why Jade was so opposed to the idea. He looked her directly in the eye. "Jade. Why don't you want to go to the movies?" When she didn't say anything, he pressed on. "I know the tuna fish was just an excuse."
"I just…I don't know," she said defensively. Beck just looked at her, waiting for her to go on. "Fine. I had a really bad day and sitting with you in the R.V. watching TV actually sounds…kinda nice."
Beck's eyebrows arched even higher. Jade actually wanted to hang around his R.V. watching "lame television?" He couldn't remember the last time they'd done so without her complaining heavily.
"What, exactly, made it so bad?"
He knew she was trying desperately to come up with a suitable excuse. She didn't like to admit to any weaknesses, even to him, and he knew that whatever was bothering her, she would pretend it was nothing. Beck reached forward and cupped his hand around her chin, pulling her face upwards so that she was looking at him. "Jade," he said, more gently this time. He felt her sigh, but whether in frustration, relief, or resignation, he couldn't tell.
"I just didn't get much sleep last night, and then breakfast sucked because I got into an argument with my dad, and even though I had a lot of coffee I just feel…drained." She looked at him hopefully, as if she was willing him to accept this bit of information and move on. When his facial expression didn't change, however, Jade just rolled her eyes and continued.
"And then these stupid girls kept coming up to me all day and basically asking me if we were still together. Because Robbie said we were breaking up. And they wanted to know if you were single, and I got sick of telling people all day that I still had a boyfriend. Even Sikowitz made fun of me about it. The day just…sucked and I'm tired of it. I just want to do something relaxing and familiar that doesn't involve being around my parents or other people."
Beck was mildly amused at the image of Jade surrounded by girls asking about him. Girls were always hitting on him; he wasn't surprised that they had resorted to pestering Jade over whether or not Beck was available. He felt slightly bad about teasing her earlier.
Still, on a normal day, girls like that would merely be an irritation, not reason enough to ruin Jade's entire day. There had to be something else.
"What did your dad say to you this morning?"
Jade blinked, looking surprised. "That he thinks I'm stupid," she said flatly. "And that he doesn't understand how people can stand to be around me. Especially since I'm rude and arrogant for thinking that I can make a career out of acting or singing." She punctuated the last sentence with an eyeroll. "I slept like an hour and the freaking coffee—which you didn't put enough sugar in—didn't help."
That explained it. On a normal day, Jade couldn't care less about taking crap from people, especially desperate girls, but Beck knew that one of her few sources of insecurity (aside from their own relationship) was her rocky relationship with her parents. Especially her dad. Beck had only met the man a few times, but they hadn't been pleasant encounters. That had to be the reason she was so cranky.
"I don't really care," she said quickly. "I just…relaxing sounded nice."
Beck nodded. "We missed part of the movie," he reassured her. He switched the car into gear. "I'd rather go back to my place anyway."
….
Jade sighed contentedly as she rested her head on Beck's shoulder. They were snuggled up on the couch, watching (to Jade's pretend irritation) DJ and Stephanie Tanner's earnest heart to heart. She rolled her eyes at the cheesiness, but was still content to stay where she was. Curled up against Beck, watching crappy television, she allowed herself to forget how unpleasant the day had been.
She'd meant what she'd said earlier; the day had worn her out. This was exactly what she needed to do—nothing involving homework, school, or people in general, only her and Beck, with nothing to do but kill time. Still…something was bothering her. She wanted to check her Slap page, and post some update hinting that Beck was still hers and make everyone jealous that they were having a nice time together. Just in case some of those girls from earlier needed a reminder that Beck was taken.
"Gimme your laptop," she ordered, and Beck passed it to her obediently (his eyes were still glued to the television).
She logged into her page and was about to update her status when she saw that she had been "slapped" in a video. She clicked on the video, and the word ROBARAZZI filled her screen.
No, she thought, horrified, as Robbie's face filled the screen. "Noooooo," she groaned out loud, feeling her temper rising as she saw that annoying long-haired freak who had been taping them in the back of Beck's car, jabbering excitedly about filming the two of them. "Beck!" she snapped, and as he saw what she was watching, his normally cool demeanor turned shocked and angry.
They sat in stunned silence. Jade could only think of one thing to say.
"I am going to kill that little creep. And Robbie. And Tori Vega."
I had a lot of fun with this – mainly, because when I saw the episode, I was like, "why would Jade mention not showering and eating tuna fish?" Jade sounding whiny and insecure was unusual enough, but it seemed like a bizarre thing to say unless she was deliberately trying to make herself sound unappealing. I think it's funny that Schneider puts a few "suggestive" lines and situations into his shows, so I ran with it.
Also, writing as that random freshman was fun as well. I figured he would have the same thoughts about Beck and Jade as the majority of Victorious viewers, so it was fun to write from his perspective as well. Hope you liked it!