Author's Note: Hey, all! I realize this is the first fic for the Beck/Robbie pairing, but I think they're super adorable and I think it would be fantastic to see more of them. I've got a weird thing for these two. They give me butterflies. Call me cheesy. Anyway, considering this is the first I've ever written for them and the first that's published on this site, let's not bash my brains out, okay? I hope you like it!

Also, obviously, I do not own Victorious. If I did, it would be one, huge, gay show.

The Boy With the Puppet

/

Beck had a secret. He hated saying it was 'dirty', because there was nothing dirty about it. But it was a bad thing to carry, and it molded in his chest like a ball of steel and the only time he didn't feel like letting it drag him to the bottom was when he could run his hands through those impossible curls and kiss a boy no one else paid attention to. Even then, he could almost feel Jade hovering over his shoulder, watching him, and his life became one enormous lie; a play.

He was an actor, wasn't he? The words he spoke were lines he practiced, every action a rehearsed motion, every kiss that Jade forced on him a staged feeling.

He had liked Jade, once, a long time ago. She hadn't always been this ice sculpture that couldn't feel anything. She used to smile, and laugh, and he used to get these crazy butterflies in his stomach whenever she touched his arm or played with his hair. They used to go out together and actually talk and Jade didn't always have this dense soul that no one could touch. She had not always treated him like he was a dog, or her property, and he could talk to other girls without her freaking out and threatening to break up. He had cared for her, once. And now she's just like chains around his feet, and even as he desperately wishes he didn't have to kiss her by her locker every day where that boy could see them, he did it. He did it because he had always done it, and Beck hates admitting he has weaknesses but Jade has always been one of them.

And that boy. He's a weakness, too. A chip in Beck's armor. No one would think so. Beck is Hollywood Arts elite, he's got arguably the hottest girl clutching his arm, and all the effortless talent everyone else would die for. And that boy, he's at the very bottom of the social ladder, the one standing awkwardly in the corner with glasses and unruly hair and a smile a little too crooked.

The boy with the puppet.

Beck presses the phone to his ear and frowns into the receiver, moving around his trailer. He's picking up things, dusting, rearranging, while he hums at appropriate intervals into the phone. "Mhm. Yep. Mhm."

"And I told Mr. Sikowtiz if he gives that worthless Vega the lead role - or any role for that matter - I'll strangle him with his own tongue."

"Yeah," Beck mumbles, catching a picture of Jade and himself in the corner of his eye. He pauses, frowning at the picture, remembering that moment. It was a long time ago, probably a year or so, but he can see that the smile on his face is genuine. And Jade's hands are on his arm, but not in the possessive clutch she does now. It's a gentle caress, a loving touch, and Beck feels the steel ball coil in his chest. That Jade is dead. It's not like he doesn't love her - he does, really, or at least the little bits of the Jade that haven't disappeared completely since they started dating. She still snorts when she laughs really hard, if she laughs at all, and she still looks at the sky like it's more than that.

He puts the picture face down.

Beck misses her.

Jade sighs hard into the phone. She calls him almost every day and just babbles for hours if he lets her, but he can't today. He's got company coming over. Beck throws his eyes to the clock and glances out the window. In the distance, down the sidewalk a bit, he can see a curly-haired head bobbing over the bushes.

"I've gotta go, Jade," he says, feeling his heart pick up a little bit. One would think that getting excited over someone like a teenage ventriloquist would be, well, absurd, especially for someone as high-ranked as Beck. But he is excited, and a smile is already threatening to take over his face.

"Why?" Her tone is brutal and even through the phone Beck can hear the accusation in her voice. "Gonna call Tori?"

"What?" Really, Beck has no idea where she comes up with this stuff. And if Jade really thinks he's cheating on her with Tori of all people, she's a lot more blind than he thought. "No. I have homework to do." The lie taste bitter on his tongue as he parts the blinds and peers out, watching the boy draw closer and closer.

"Ew," Jade huffs. "Well, call me when you're done."

"Okay." He doesn't want to, but Jade told him to, and he always does what she says. The image of him being a stupid lapdog crosses his mind for an infuriating moment, but he brushes it off. "Bye."

"Love you."

Beck only hesitates a moment. "Love you, too." He closes his phone and slaps it on the counter before ripping open the door to the trailer just as a boy with the puppet rounds the corner of the bushes. They see each other at the same time and reflect each others stupid smiles, the kind of goofy grin you see when two kids chase each other on the playground. "Robbie," Beck says, under his breath, convincing himself that he was just continuing from the last thing he had said on the phone to Jade. That way, he feels like he isn't lying so much.

"Hey, Aladdin." It's Rex's voice that speaks to him first, his owner glaring at him furiously before swinging the puppet behind his back. Robbie's head ducks as he makes his way to the door of the trailer. His clothes are a bit baggy on his frame, the sleeves too short for his arms, and he has that awkward swagger kids like him always have and Beck just beams. Beck smirks at them, the steel ball in his chest uncoiling as Robbie draws closer and closer. He glances first to his house and then across the street, watching for prying eyes.

It's a secret he hates to keep, but there are rules to this, and boundaries, and eyes that shouldn't see anything.

As soon as Robbie is close enough, Beck's arm outstretches and catches the other boy by the back of his neck, yanking him the rest of the way inside. Robbie gasps - he always does when Beck touches him, really - and closes the door behind him, shoving him against the door of the trailer with his chest pressed to Robbie's. Beck doesn't speak, simply holds the boy against the door and find his mouth with his own, kissing Jade away and replacing her with Robbie.

Beck kisses him for a long time, so long that Robbie eventually drops Rex, the puppet clattering to the floor. Even that doesn't distract him, and Beck grins behind the kiss as he feels Robbie's bony hands snake up his chest and circle his neck, pulling him closer. Robbie trembles when Beck's tongue slides over his lower lip, a muffled gasp swallowed. Beck likes kissing Robbie, likes feeling him shiver like he does because this is the way it used to be with Jade. But Robbie's better. Robbie isn't going to change.

It isn't until Robbie pulls back with a loud gasp of air that Beck stops. His head is spinning. He blinks to bring Robbie back into focus, and he doesn't notice until then that the two of them are panting like they both sprinted from the school and back.

"Hey," Beck says finally, taking a slow step backward to give the other boy some time to recuperate. Robbie smiles hazily at him, bending slowly to tenderly lift the puppet from the floor. He cradles it in his thin arms like a mother would a child, carefully slipping his hand inside of the puppet.

"Someone missed me," Robbie says with a cocked grin.

"Yeah, and I got dropped on my head. Thanks a lot, chizz-for-brains." Rex's head spins to the side. Robbie frowns down at him, about to scream a furious comeback before Beck reaches out, placing a hand on the puppet's head.

"Why don't we put Rex in the cupboard?" Beck smiles, yanking the puppet away from Robbie and turning toward a cupboard at random. The puppet screams a series of impressive insults at his person until the door closes and then Robbie's beside him, leaning on the counter. As much as Beck finds the whole ventriloquism talent quirky, he could go without Rex. Beck liked Robbie a lot more when his hands were free.

For obvious reasons.

Well, that, and he didn't need Rex's constant commentary. He had enough guilty dialogue going on in his skull and he knew that Rex was Robbie's way of trying to say things he was too afraid to, but he didn't want to hear it. When he was with Robbie, he didn't want to think about anything else.

Beck puts his hands on Robbie's hips and kisses him again, slower and softer, not the heated frenzy they had indulged in at the door. He's more composed now, having Jade out of his system, and pulls back smoothly to catch the boy's eyes hooded behind his glasses. They're a smoldering brown that no one else notices, not like Beck does, because they see the puppet and the fro and immediately steer clear of Robbie like the plague. Robbie's a nerd. Robbie's awkward. But Beck likes the way he listens, and how, when Rex isn't talking for him, he speaks these jewels of wisdom that everyone else looks over. And maybe 'hot' or 'perfect' is the wrong word to use for Robbie, but he's awkwardly beautiful to Beck, and he'll never be able to explain why.

"You're doing that thing again," Robbie mumbles, his voice struggling to even be a whisper. Beck isn't sure why he has that effect on people.

"What?"

"I don't know. It's like you're trying to peek at my soul - or undress me with your eyes."

"I think your eyes are pretty. Also, I like you with no clothes on."

A blush that would put the ripest apple to shame climbs Robbie's cheeks and disappears along his hairline. Beck laughs, taking Robbie's shoulder and moving him toward the bed. "Sit. Relax. I ordered pizza for us."

Robbie perches on the edge of it and Beck can still see the tension in the boy's shoulders, despite the many nights Robbie had spent the night here. They had even had sex a few times already, though Robbie nearly passed out almost every time Beck took off his shirt. Sex with Robbie had been a bit of a struggle for both of them - neither of them had had sex with a man before, but Beck had seen porn, and he could still see the confusion on the boy's face when Beck told him to bend over. Things were getting better now, smoother, even if Jade's face haunted him every time Robbie curled to his chest.

Beck frowned as he pulled a few cans of pop from the fridge. He took a moment to try and push Jade back, away from the here and now, because she ruined everything else but he wouldn't let her ruin this precious time with a boy who truly listened to him. Beck closes the door a bit too forcefully as he moves back to the bed, handing Robbie his can before folding his legs on the bed covers.

"You okay?" Robbie's eyebrows are doing all sorts of jumps of concern across his forehead. "Is it Jade?"

Beck literally cringes at her name, cracking the pop open and bringing it to his lips. "I'm fine."

Robbie's face falls to his lap and his hands twiddle uselessly in his lap. Beck knows Robbie hates talking/thinking about Jade as much as he does, but it's inevitable. Beck has a girlfriend, by all standards of high school. He won't, or can't, break up with her, and he's cheating on her. With a boy.

With Robbie.

"Not tonight," Beck says softly and he feels Robbie's eyes on his head. "Let's not talk about her, okay?"

He glances up to see a spark of hurt in Robbie's eyes, but it dies as soon as it comes to life. Beck hates this, hates this whole thing, but as hard as it is, Jade needs him. She can't function without him and he'd rather lie to her than see her broken. It's twisted and messed up, but he's with Robbie now and Jade isn't important at the moment. When Robbie's here, he can pretend he doesn't have to carry Jade on his shoulders.

"Do you remember the first time you kissed me?"

Beck arches his eyebrows in surprise to see Robbie smiling behind his hand, lanky legs pulled to his chest. "We were in the janitor's closet."

"...Lots of odd things happen in there."

"And you said, 'this is wrong' about a hundred times. And Rex called you a rapist."

Beck frowned. "Such a charming subconscious you have, Robbie."

"I remember thinking that you'd never talk to me again after that. You pretty much ran out of the closet and left me there. But the next time I saw you with Jade, and she kissed you, your eyes were open and you were staring at her forehead." Robbie touches his lips absently and looks at Beck across the bed. "And I knew that you'd leave her eventually. Not that you'd necessarily end up with me, but someday you wouldn't be with her anymore."

Beck cradles his chin in his hand and watches Robbie for awhile. It's not the kids at Hollywood Arts that he cares about, or what his parents might say. It's just Jade, this piece of ice that used to have a heart. She's already this broken person and he doesn't know how it happened, but he can't just let her go like that. "As soon as I think she's ready, I'll do it."

Robbie's smile falters. "That could be years, Beck."

Beck huffs and waves his hand. "Not tonight, Robbie, please."

Robbie's jaw tightens and there's a hundred words in his eyes, but he doesn't have Rex, so he doesn't say them. Instead, he crawls across the bed and steals a kiss and Beck feels better, like Jade is far away. Robbie forces Beck to do his homework, helping him shift through mind-numbing calculus and studying history notes. Their pizza arrives and the two of them wrap themselves in Beck's blankets and flip mindless through the channels on his TV, but Robbie's lips become a lot more interesting really fast. When Robbie's cellphone finally starts screaming from his discarded pants, the sky is pink, and they're naked and tired. Robbie kisses him goodbye, stumbles into his clothes, and drags Rex from the cupboard.

The boy with the puppet leaves with a smile on his face, a wave thrown toward Beck's position in the trailer window before he disappears around the bushes, his bobbing curls disappearing.

And Beck knows and has promised that one day this will be his life always, and Jade will be a shadow. But for now, he turns up the picture he had turned over earlier and picks up his phone.

"Hey, Jade."