Summary

For all intents and purposes, it looked like Beck was pinning Jade to the wall and smacking her around. And now, everyone had seen it. This wasn't bruises on her wrists that she could hide with bracelets, or a bite mark deep on his shoulder which meant he couldn't wear his usual 'vest and open shirt' combo for a week. This was a look into the deepest, most private part of their relationship; and it was broadcast for everyone to see and judge. And judge incorrectly.

When a video clip of Jade and Beck gets released on 's gossip page, it causes the entire school to judge Beck and Jade's relationship. With Beck now looking like public enemy number one and Jade being treated like glass by the student population, they have to figure out a way to get out of the mess with their reputations still intact.

A (hopefully) realistic view of teenagers in an unconventional sexual relationship.

Chapter Summary

A new article appears and Beck sometimes despairs he introduced Jade and Andre to each other.

Authors Note

Nothing really...super plot pushing this chapter - or next chapter, to be honest - mostly just exposition and a chance for me to write banter between my favourite trio - I really like the Jandreck (Jade, Andre and Beck) trio, moreso than Catorade (Cat, Tori and Jade); because I'm a sucker for boy-girl non-romantic friendships, so I like Jade and Andre being a BroTP. And in my mind, both of them team up against Beck.

Enjoy!

Chapter 8: while your body's giving me life

ARTICLE

After last Friday's bombshell article, we've all been holding our breath and watching like hawks anytime the infamous 'BADE' couple appears. We've been giving the lovely, misunderstood Jade West our full support and making sure we have her back. But we're not sure why Jade doesn't seem happy. She can finally get out of an abusive relationship; the truth is exposed! She knows everyone is on her side. So why is she still with Beck? She's defended him multiple times to people who have offered her their support and seems to get angrier each time it's brought up!

Anyway! Lets look back on some highlights of Friday and this morning;

+ Two students managed to successfully jump Beck in the boys toilets before first period. Beck ended up with a bloody lip, torn shirt and no doubt bruises under his clothes (easily hidden, just like his bruises on Jade no doubt!). One of the two boy ended up with a sprained wrist and missing tooth, and the other a bloody nose and black eye, but they claimed it was worth it.

+ Andre Harris, Beck's best friend and one of the few people close to Jade, was seen dragging both of them into the janitors closet on Friday morning just after the above mentioned jumping. Our sources don't know what was discussed, but at the end, Jade came out muttering about 'idiots and fools' followed by a playfully lighthearted Beck and Andre, complete with grins and light shoves. Why was Andre not pissed at Beck? Andre Harris is one of the most likable people at Hollywood Arts and one of the nicest, so why is he fine with this?!

+ Andre was later seen herding Tori Vega, Cat Valentine and Robbie Shapiro into the same janitors closet, not long after Jade and Beck disappeared into there. When they left, there was no hostility in the trio, despite my sources saying that all three were furious at Beck at the start of first period.

+ Ryder Daniel's reputation went up in everyone's eyes after he quite bravely confronted Beck head on in the hallways at lunch time, only to be stopped by Jade herself. If you don't remember, Ryder became a bit of an outcast last year when it turned out he'd been using girls for grade (we have an article on that here) and the one to unmask him was Jade West's frenemy, Tori Vega (yeah, the girl who bone structure is the envy of every girl in Hollywood Arts). Little known fact; do you know that Ryder Daniel's is Jade West's neighbour? And rumour has it, he's been in love with her since they were 12!

+ Sources say that over the weekend, Jade and Beck spent time with their 'gang' (Tori Vega, Cat Valentine, Andre Harris and Robbie Shapiro), with the two girls staying the night at Jade's on Friday and the boys staying at Beck's RV (maybe that's how his parents never realised how their son is an abusive monster?). They then spent Saturday together at West Manor, the same source says although no details were given.

+ Today (Monday), the pair appeared as usual, all wrapped up in each other, as if no world changing news had been broken on Friday. They both got pulled into Lane's office, but as they came out together, and no repercussions or investigations into Beck seem to be going on, we have to ask...what on Earth is going on with these two?! And why are their friends and faculty not taking it seriously?! We all know both Beck and Jade are amazing actors (probably how Beck got away with this for who knows how long!), but with video proof in our last article, how can anyone deny it?!

We have so many questions, and we're sure you do too! Keep an eye on this page for any updates and if you have any information on the two of them, PM us!

Jade let out a hiss of annoyance as she slammed her phone down on the lunch table. "There's another one. Another God damn article about us." She sneered, pushing her phone towards Beck and Andre, the only two at the table right now, the others still rushing to the Grub Truck for their food.

Both males peered at the phone, eyebrows raising further and further as the bulleted list went on. "And now they're bringing us into it." Andre stated with a sigh, although he couldn't help but be a little flattered when he read that he was seen as one of the most likable and nice people in the whole of HA.

"This is getting ridiculous. And I know Lane has already told Helen because I bumped into her in the halls on my way here and she just stared at me with this awkward look on her face." She wrinkled her nose remembering the Principal and the way she'd frozen and avoided eye contact with Jade. A reasonable response, really; being an adult and finding out one of the students under your care enjoyed being slapped around by her boyfriend. In an effort to comfort herself, she tucked herself into Beck's side and rested her head on his shoulder, allowing him to wrap an arm around her waist, his fingers tapping out a rhythmic tattoo on her hip bone.

Beck let out a grunt of annoyance, not at Jade, but at feeling the burn of peoples glares on the back of his neck. "It's...getting more ridiculous by the hour. Any luck finding Sinjin?"

"Sinjin? It's normally easy to find him; he's normally within a 5 meter distance of Jade." Andre quipped with a cheeky grin. "Why are you looking for him anyway?"

"He's off sick today I think. Or something like that." She answered Beck's question first before turning to Andre. "We're going to see if he can trace the blogger. See who it is who's doing this stuff and making them put up a retraction or just...stop feeding into it."

Andre nodded with an impressed look on his face. "Good plan. And since it's Sinjin..."

"He'll do whatever I ask. If he does this, I'll allow him to kiss my cheek in public or have me kiss his cheek in public. I'm pretty sure he'd hand over his every belonging if I asked with that on offer." Jade smirked, but Beck looked down at her with a raised eyebrow.

"A kiss? Wow Jade, I'm so happy that us dating doesn't mess with your ability to kiss other boys." He drawled teasingly. Sure, he probably wouldn't be too happy if it was anyone else she was giving the offer too. But it was Sinjin. He was harmless and even a kiss on the cheek would probably put him in a coma from pure shock and elation.

"It's a Sinjin." She replied, unknowingly echoing his own thoughts. "He doesn't count as a person, so it's totally not cheating." Jade teased back with a grin, pressing a kiss to his jawline, since it was easier than his cheek from her position tucked under his arm. The had decided that one important thing to do right now was to be 'sweet', or as sweet as Jade could manage. That meant a lot of touching and hugging and light kisses; not just heavy making out. It wouldn't stop the stupid rumours, but it would maybe help people think twice about insulting Beck, if they could just see that he wasn't a giant monster. "Anyway, Andre...have you seen Vega today?"

"Only for a minute or two this morning...why?" He asked curiously, hoping he wouldn't be subjected to more comments about how him and Tori should obviously hook up or that they were in love with each other secretly. The pair had discussed the misconception their friends had about them a fair amount, and both knew it wasn't true, which was why both were fine being so loud and vehement in their denial – it wouldn't hurt the other one to hear it.

"She...may have found out about you hooking up with Cat over the summer." Jade warned. "So...yeah, if she's weird around you, that's probably it. I didn't have a chance to give you a warning on Saturday."

Andre looked at her with wide eyes. "Seriously?! How did that even come up in conversation!"

"You know how nosy Vega can be. I'm surprised she waited until we got back to my house to start firing off questions to me about sex. But it came up and Cat just admitted she'd lost her virginity over the summer then told her the truth." Jade shrugged, ignoring the look Beck gave her.

"You discussed our sex lives with our friends?!"

"And you're telling me you didn't say a single word about it to Andre and Robbie on Friday?" She replied with, arching an eyebrow in annoyance mixed with amusement. "Because point blank, I saw both of them staring at the faded bruises on my hips and thighs on Saturday when we were swimming."

"Dude! Don't stare at my girlfriend!" Beck shot Andre a look, who shrugged innocently.

"Hey man, nothing personal. I see a hot girl showing a lot of skin, I stare." Andre replied easily letting out a light laugh as Jade winked and clicked her fingers at him.

"And you, stop flirting with my best friend." He scolded playfully. "But anyway...yeah, point taken."

"I can promise you he didn't get gross or in-depth." Andre piped up. "Just like...a very brief overview."

"Oh...I told them everything. Like seriously Beck." Jade looked at him with dead-ass serious eyes. "Everything. They know how you sometimes talk dirty in Hindi, how big your cock is-"

"Jade!" Beck exclaimed with wide eyes, his face slowly flushing, before Jade burst into laughter.

"I'm joking! I didn't tell them anything like that. I imagine it was probably the same as you told the guys." Jade shared a wicked grin with Andre, who chuckled under his breath shaking his head.

"Jesus West, you're such a troll. And people think you're so serious all the time." Andre snickered, holding out his fist for her to 'bump' hers into as Beck sighed in a long-suffering tone. He regretted ever introducing them sometimes, because these days, they often just teamed up to mock him. Thankfully, it was only when they were alone, just the three of them; he didn't want to deal with the others finding out just how bad his girlfriend and best friend got when mocking him playfully. But he didn't mind it that much; he knew Andre's friendship meant a lot to Jade, because it was easily the most 'normal' friendship she had; it didn't have the caring/parental aspect with Cat, the frenemy aspect of Tori and Jade and the weird love-hate-indifference aspect that she had with Robbie. Plus, all three of them liked hanging out together without the others sometimes. It was one of the few times Jade felt fully comfortable with someone other than him, when it was just the three of them watching crappy TV shows or movies, or even just doing nothing but sporadic conversations between the three while they focused on their homework or pet projects.

"Hey, it's not my fault that people are idiots and don't know genius when they see it." She replied in a haughty tone, tilting her chin upwards. "I'm freakin' hilarious. But people just don't get my highly evolved sense of humor. It's too intellectual for them"

"You two once giggled like school girls for 20 minutes when the IT teacher showed us a '12 Inch Floppy Disk' from years ago." Beck stated blankly. "I don't think that's highly evolved. I think you actually just have the sense of humour of 12 year olds. The both of you."

"Dude! Her accent made it sound like she said 'Dick' and you know it!" Andre exclaimed, Jade nodding fervently in support.

"Yeah Beck – and you of all people know how much I love 12-inch dicks-" Jade's words were cut off due to his hand slamming over her mouth playfully, because, obviously she was joking about his 'size' being quite that big (he was 98% sure no one who wasn't in porn had anything remotely that size) but he was definitely a fair amount above average (shut up, measuring it was totally normal for guys OK?) and he didn't exactly want to end up in the inevitable 'dick measuring' contest with Andre (and knowing Jade, she'd probably push for a literal dick measuring contest which just...no.) along with the fact their other friends were arriving. And like, he really didn't want his friends to overhear this particular conversation. If only because he was worried about their blood pressure from going neon red so often over the course of the last few days.

"Is Jade being highly inappropriate again?" Tori asked as she sat down with her pizza, next to Andre, with Cat and Robbie on her other side.

"Immfygooimapropat!" Jade managed to garble out past Beck's hand.

"What does it say about me that I actually understood that?" Tori asked, both curious and slightly worried for her mental wellbeing. "And yes Jade. I know you'll 'Show me inappropriate' because I'm pretty sure that's your normal setting. I genuinely don't think you can be appropriate." She snarked back, but it was good natured. After Friday and Saturday, Tori felt like yet another turning point had been made in her quest for Jade's friendship. This morning, Jade had actually called her by her first name. In public! "Also, Beck, people are staring." She pointed out, and Beck groaned, quickly removing his hand because of course, something simple he used to do a fair amount would now be looked and examined as if it was proof of him being abusive.

"Ugh! You made me eat some of my hair!" Jade whined, brushing strands of black away from her lips.

"Well, maybe don't be so inappropriate." He replied with a fond grin and she rolled her eyes.

"Pffft. You love it when I'm inappropriate." She sent him a small yet cheeky look, her eyes sparkling and her lips twisting up just the smallest amount at one corner, and he let out a huff of laughter before tucking his arm back around her. "Next time I'll bite you!"

"Jokes on you; I'll like it."