Author's Note: Merry Christmas! This is the day you've all been waiting for!
Just to warn you all, this isn't exactly like the other chapters, with hearty chuckle and good times all around. This is more of the Merry Christmas Drake and Josh of A December to Remember. It's a little more serious, but we still have a laugh every now and then. And hopefully it's somewhere close to being as heartwarming as McD&J.
Character(s): Beck, Jade, Mr. Oliver, Mrs. Oliver, Beck's sister (mostly added for comic relief)
Pairing(s): Bade all the way across the sky. Intense.
December 25th, 2011
"Oh, wow, son... This gift looks really... wrapped."
Beck sighed, leaning farther back into the couch. "Dad, I get it, I'm not good at wrapping presents. You don't have to make me feel bad about it."
"Why not?" His sister plopped down next to him on the couch with a plate of gingerbread cookies and a giggle. "Looking at it makes the rest of us feel bad."
Beck responded to that little jab by tugging her Santa hat down over her eyes and taking one of her cookies.
What? Beck didn't have to be a saint all the time.
"Dear, don't be mean to your brother," Mrs. Oliver told her daughter as she sat down on the love seat with her husband. "It's Christmas."
Speaking of which, if he didn't call Jade before ten, she'd think he had forgotten about her and yell at him for it until President's Day. He wouldn't want that, now would he?
"You guys start opening gifts without me." Beck pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and told them, "I just need to call Jade real quick."
Before he could get up, his father asked, "The girl who got you that dog that attacked me?" Mr. Oliver frowned. "You know, if you wanted to save yourself the trouble of creating this paper monstrosity, you could have just broken up with her as my gift. You wouldn't have had to wrap that."
Oh geez. It was Father's Day all over again.
"Aww, come on, Daddy," Beck's little sister said between bites of gingerbread. "She brought us cookies the other day. That was nice of her."
"Pumpkin, when you saw those gory baked goods, you cried so hard that you threw up in the kitchen sink."
"... They tasted good when I closed my eyes. And after I gargled."
Beck sighed and leaned closer to his sister so he could quietly say, "Thanks for trying, sis," before gently flicking her nose and getting up to call Jade in the other room.
Luckily, Jade was on his speed dial, so he didn't have to keep her waiting any longer than he had to. He knew by then that Jade did not like waiting.
"Ugh. Hey."
"Well ho ho ho to you too, babe." Beck settled down in one of the comfy chairs in the sitting room. "I just wanted to say merry Christmas before you leave with your dad and step mom, so I guess I'll have to give you your gift-"
"My dad and his wife already left."
"Oh. So you're in the car with them?"
"No."
"You're driving behind them?"
"No."
"... I don't, uh-"
"My dad said I couldn't come."
Beck straightened up in his chair, ignoring his sister's squeals of delight at whatever she had just unwrapped. "Wait a second. I thought you were supposed to go with them."
"Well, don't you have an elephant's memory, you flappin' genius." He could hear her sigh into the phone. "Look, my stepmother called her parents earlier. When she mentioned I was coming with them, her mom started hyperventilating and her dad said that if I came, he was hiding in his bomb shelter until I left."
"What did you do to them during your last visit to make them so afraid of you?" Beck asked.
"... They overreacted."
"What did you do." He didn't even bother stating that as a question. It was an order.
"... I set their bed on fire."
Why did Beck ask? Why?
Rubbing his forehead and shutting his eyes, Beck quietly asked, "And why would you do that?"
"I didn't like their duvet. It was a floral print."
"Of course it was." He knew for a fact that Jade hated floral prints, or anything that had to do with flowers. It was on the list he made a year or so ago of all the things she hated. The list was thirty nine pages long so far. "So, they just left you there? Your dad left his only daughter alone on Christmas day?"
"Beck." Jade's voice didn't have its usual bitterness in it. That wasn't a good sign. "I didn't want to go anyway. I don't care."
She cared. Beck could tell. She may not have wanted to go to her step grandparents' house, but being abandoned on the most important family holiday of the year could make anyone feel like wonk. Even Jade West.
"Do you want me to come over?"
"No."
She might as well have screamed yes yes dear God YES into his ear.
"Okay. Just call me if you need anything." Beck ran a hand through his hair and quietly added, "I love you."
"Whatever." And with that affectionate farewell, Jade hung up.
Beck sat, his PearPhone still to his ear, for a few moments of thought, but eventually slid it back in his pocket.
Nobody deserved to be alone on Christmas. Especially not Jade.
Anyone else would say 'not even Jade', but Beck wasn't anyone else, was he?
He wandered back into the living room, where his family had barely made a dent in their massive piles of presents. His mother saw his standing there, so she smiled and gestured to his present pile by the couch. "Beck, sweetheart, come open some of your presents!"
Beck, looking unsure at first but slowly gaining confidence in his decision, shook his head. "I'll open them later."
As he got his car keys off the key tree, his sister leaned over the back of the couch. "Where are you going?"
"I need to be with Jade."
Before he could take one more step, his father called out, "Beck, come back here. You're not going to abandon your family for some girl."
He turned around to look at his father and firmly told him, "You guys will be fine. Jade needs me more."
He walked off before his father could get another word in on the matter.
As they heard the front door shut, the three remaining Olivers remained silent for a moment, until the youngest finally spoke up.
"Does this mean I'm the favorite now?"
/ /
"This movie has a really disappointing ending." Jade shook her head in disgust. "That stupid kid didn't even shoot his eye out. Hollywood doesn't know how to make a satisfying Christmas movie."
After turning off the TV and throwing the remote at her stepmother's favorite vase, Jade settled back into the couch and took her coffee cup into her hands.
She liked this Christmas. It was quiet. It was like that song, Silent Night.
Jade hated that song, but she liked silence. Yep.
The only sound she heard for three minutes was the ticking of the clock and of her sipping her coffee.
... She was starting to hate silence.
For once, she was glad the doorbell rang.
Setting her coffee down, she slowly got up to answer the door. When she did, she let out a breath and muttered, "I told you I didn't want you to come over."
"I didn't listen. You're not the only one who can do that." Beck smirked, hands tucked into his pockets. "I thought you might need some Christmas cheer."
"It's like you've never met me." Jade leaned against the side of the front door and observed what her boyfriend was wearing. "I see you like the sweater I got you."
"I do."
"It looks way better on you than it did on Andre."
"What?"
"Nothing, come in." She stepped out of the way slightly so her boyfriend could squeeze through.
After the door was shut and they were in the living room, Beck noticed the TV remote next to the remains of the new Mrs. West's vase and looked up at Jade. "Accident?"
"You could say that."
"Mhmm." Jade sat back down on the couch and Beck joined her. "Do you want to talk about-"
"No."
"I figured that much." Beck wrapped an arm around her and she slowly settled into him. "My sister liked your cookies."
"I'm surprised she didn't throw up."
"... She did at first. But then she gargled and ate them with her eyes closed."
"God love that kid."
There was silence between them for a while, but this silence Jade liked. The previous silence had been deafening, but silence between her and Beck was never really awkward like it should have been. It was just comfortable. It might have had something to do with the way he ran his hand across her back and played with the ends of her loose curls, or maybe it was just because silence meant that they weren't fighting.
Either way, Jade didn't mind it.
Beck, for some reason that Jade instantly hated, calmly asked, "Who are those presents for?"
Jade looked at the presents under the tree with an eye roll. "My stupid fluffy stepmother. I'm gonna sell them on the internet when I get the chance. Or beat them into pulp with my dad's good golf clubs. I haven't really decided yet."
"I see." Beck pulled back and looked at his girlfriend. "Well, I hopefully have a present for you that you won't want to pulverize."
Jade would have said something along the lines of 'gimme', but that would make her sound childish. And children are terrible people. So she didn't say anything.
He pulled a small box out of his pocket and held it out to her. "I got this for you a month or so ago, but I wanted to save it for now."
Jade slowly took the box. "You know I hate waiting."
"I think this will have been worth it."
Jade slowly opened the box, taking in what was in it. It was a necklace, a simple silver chain, but attached was a beautiful lowercase b charm.
"You got me a J necklace for our anniversary." Beck picked up said necklace and its small black charm from around his neck, held it up and smiled at her. "If I'm branded, it's only fair for you to be too."
Jade, for once, didn't have on her usual snarky look. She didn't look all girly and daffodil-like either, just because her boyfriend got her a piece of jewelry, because Jade West didn't roll that way. But her walls had been brought down enough that day, and it was just Beck, so she could act a little touched, right?
"I'm going to pretend your silence is a stunned one and that you're in love with it and you totally don't want to throw something at me." Beck smirked as he took the necklace out of the box and unlatched it. Jade combed her hair out of the way and let him put it on her. "Just think if this as a symbol."
A symbol of what? Jade didn't even have a chance to ask. Not that should would have. Asking questions such as that was below her.
Beck leaned closer to her, so close that their foreheads were touching, and oh so gently told her, "A symbol that no matter what, you'll never be alone."
How did he always know what to say to her? Why was he so amazing and what the flap had she ever done to deserve him?
Oh geez, that was terribly daffodil-ish. Jade was momentarily ashamed of herself for that.
But she didn't have time for her shame, because she quietly said three little words she had never told Beck, in all the time they had been dating.
"I love you."
Beck looked at her for a moment, but gave her a small smile, one that looked pretty suppressed as to not make her feel too embarrassed, and told her, "I love you too."
At that moment, Jade was really glad she had set that duvet on fire.
Even more glad than she had been before.
lol what a crappy chapter Christmas is ruined.
There, I did it for you guys so you wouldn't have to. Merry Christmas!
Beck's sister sure is a vague character, huh? I mean, she could be five for all we know. Or fourteen and adopted and short and one of the stars of the fanfic Just Go With It that I cowrite with the lovely srslyitzcaroline.
I don't even know if I spelled that right. Flab.