Title: The Intervention

Author: khay

Category: Victorious

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Victorious and all related characters do not belong to me.

Summary: Stuck in a janitor's closet together, there's nothing Beck and Jade can do except talk. Or maybe kill each other. Whichever comes first. Borderline crack fic. Post-TWC.

Continuity: Post-TWC.

Author's Notes: I originally wrote the middle part of this for my other fic, but it didn't really blend in well so I had to cut it out. Then (not being a resident of the USA), I belatedly saw the Tori Goes Platinum promo which sent the Victorious fandom into an insane ship war. So i wrote the beginning and the ending to show my take on the controversial almost-kiss. Yah. OOC-alert because Beck actually has feelings here. Lol! And for the purposes of this story, the Janitor's closet opens out, not in. I need the door blocked! And there is no secret passage to the library.

The Intervention

"Get your filthy hands off of me!"

"Sorry, Jade, this is for your own good!"

"Dude! That's not cool!"

"You'll thank us later."

"The janitor's closet? Really?"

"Just please talk about your problems?"

"Yeah! We can't stand the tension anymore!"

Despite the furious protests of the two struggling teens, they were unceremoniously deposited inside the janitor's closet.

"I will get you all back for this!" and with that ominous threat, the door shut with a final thud.

Beck Oliver immediately pounced on the door and jiggled the knob. "It's not locked, but something's blocking the door from the outside."

"Try pushing harder!"

"I'm trying!" Beck ground out. "Help me!"

"Fine." Jade West rolled her eyes, but obediently went to the door. "On three. One...two...whoa. Déjà vu."

Beck stopped in his attempt to push open the door. "That is not helping."

"I'm just saying," Jade held up her hands in surrender.

After a couple of minutes of working together to push the door open without result, Jade stopped and stalked to the corner of the room.

"This is hopeless. I knew I should have picked a stockier ex boyfriend." she muttered as she sat down on the floor.

"What did you say?" Beck ground out.

"Nothing." Jade batted her eyes prettily and gave Beck an innocent (fake) smile. Then, the grin disappeared as she reached into her boot and brought out a sharp, silver pair of scissors from her boot with a loud snikt.

Beck gulped and, for a moment, actually feared for his life.

"So now what?" Jade glared at him as she grabbed a plastic bucket from under the shelves.

Beck shrugged as he slunk to the opposite end of the small room (which he felt was getting smaller by the minute).

"Do you have a cellphone?" Jade asked.

"Yes. But, in case you didn't notice, all of our friends are in on this! Even Sinjin! Who am I gonna call to ask to let us out?"

"Gimme it."

"What?"

"Gimme your phone!"

"Why?"

"Well, I don't have mine! Cat took my purse!"

"Why do you need my phone? Did you not hear me when I said we don't have anyone to call because all our friends are in on this?"

"I have other friends!"

"Really?"

"Yes! Really!"

"Let me guess, you met them at dives and tattoo parlors."

"Well, I gotta do something after you dumped me!"

"I didn't dump you!"

"JUST GIVE ME THE PHONE!"

"FINE!"

After a hushed conversation between Jade and her friend, Jade tossed the phone back to Beck. "They'll be here in an hour."

"You mean we're stuck here for one whole hour?"

"Well, that's the earliest time they can get here!" Jade snarled. "If you want to get out of here quicker, then you think of something else!"

Beck glared at Jade. Jade glared back but quickly became bored, so she began cutting up the plastic bucket in her hand.

"So," Beck began after a long moment of uncomfortable silence. "Who's they?"

"I'm not talking to you," Jade told him without looking up from the plastic bucket she was mutilating.

"You just did!"

That made Jade look up, but if looks could kill, Beck would not be coming out of the closet alive.

After a while, Beck began to feel stir crazy. He got up and started to pace. Which did not help because they were stuck in a tiny, tiny closet.

"Fine. If you don't want to talk, then you can just listen." Beck told Jade as he went back to his corner and sat down.

Jade's pierced eyebrow rose, but she didn't look up nor did she say anything.

Beck took a deep breath. "They're right, you know. We can't keep doing this. Ever since we broke up, you either avoid me or snipe at me."

"Yeeaah," Jade couldn't help but reply. "In case you didn't notice, that's pretty much how I treat everybody."

"That's not how you treated me before."

"You were my boyfriend before." Jade reminded him. "And now you're not." she gave the plastic bucket (or what's left of it) a particularly vicious snip.

"Yeah. Maybe I made a mistake." Beck said quietly.

Jade's startled eyes met Beck's. "What are you saying?"

"I still love you. I don't think I ever stopped." Beck stood up and crouched near Jade. "I want us to be together again. I want to call you mine. I want to be yours again."

"I think that's our problem, Beck." Jade told him. "I don't think you ever were mine."

Beck started to protest but was interrupted by Jade.

"You told me that you were unhappy in our relationship." Jade absently played with her scissors. "That pretty much blindsided me. Because I thought we were happy even if ours was not a typical relationship. I thought you understood us even if others didn't. But I guess I was wrong."

"I was happy!"

"No, you weren't and you made sure a hundred witnesses hear you say that!" Jade snapped.

"I just got tired of all the sniping and the fighting!"

"You think if we get back together we won't be sniping and fighting?" This time, it was Jade who stood up and started pacing, anything to get away from Beck. "Because I guarantee you the moment we get back together, we would still be doing that because nothing has changed."

"Because you're so crazy possessive." Beck told her. "Don't you get it? I love you!" he declared in desperation. "You!"

"I know! I heard that from you hundreds of times before! But, Beck, what you say and what I see are two entirely different things!" Jade told him as she topped pacing and slumped at the wall farthest from Beck. "The only way I know how to love is passionately, wholeheartedly, madly. You don't love me that way! You don't love me the way I love you!"

"How can you say that?"

"Because you never put me first!" Jade cried out in frustration. "You never took my feelings into consideration! You never understood me! And when things got tough, you didn't listen to me! You heard what others had to say about us but you never heard me! And you didn't open the door and be with me."

"I'm sorry. What more do you want me to say?"

"Honestly? I don't know."

"Jade," Beck walked over to Jade and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Tell me. Tell me what I have to do."

Jade shook her head. "You wanna know why I'm crazy jealous?" she continued as if Beck didn't speak at all. "It's the way you look at Tori."

"What? Why are we back at Tori again?" Beck exploded. "Tori and I are just friends!"

"Let me finish." Jade escaped from Beck's grasp and moved away from him. She crossed her arms, as if to protect herself. "Nobody was surprised when we broke up. Some people called it inevitable. Because even before the break up, I keep hearing people talking about how great and how perfect you and Tori would be for each other. Hollywood Arts' own prince and princess. And like a bad soap opera, the only thing standing in the way of true love is the ganky, evil protagonist."

"You never cared about what other people thought about you, Jade."

"I don't." Jade replied with candor. "But apparently, you do."

"I don't—"

"Can you stand there and tell me honestly that you never wondered what it would have been like if you met Tori before you met me?" Jade interrupted his denial.

"So, what are you saying?" Beck asked her. "That you want me to date Tori before you can get back together with me?"

"No. I don't want that. It would hurt me more than I can describe. But I'm already hurting. So what's one more hurt on top of that, right?" Finally, after much struggle, a solitary tear dropped from Jade's eyes. She impatiently brushed it away. "But I can't be with you with this thing hanging over my head. Maybe our break up's a good thing. Maybe you need to find out once and for all what Tori Vega means to you."

"Jade, I don't-"

"Just as I need to learn if being you is worth all this pain. Because loving you hurts, Beck." she admitted. "Every flirtatious smile, every smoldering look, every inviting touch that you receive from girls that you don't discourage hurt me."

"Jade," Beck began, but was interrupted by a commotion from outside. He heard Tori and Cat scream, accompanied by a loud crash.

"The calvary's here." Jade announced.

Beck watched as Jade closed her eyes and sighed. And like a consummate actor putting on make up, the pain and the sorrow disappeared from her face, replaced by ennui and annoyance.

"I won't give up on you, Jade." Beck vowed to himself. He wasn't sure that Jade heard, but it didn't matter . "I won't give up on us."

The door opened moments later.

"Hey, Jade," four wholesome, all-American teenagers chorused from the open door, grinning from ear to ear.

When Beck and Jade stepped outside and saw their friends near the lockers, tied up together with a piece of rope.

"Good work, boys. Thanks!" Jade told her heroes.

"Anytime."

"Anything for you, Jade."

"It's no problem."

"Need a ride home?"

"Sure." Jade grinned at them as she hooked her arms to the arms of the tallest (prettiest) boy and the one wearing a helmet. Together, Jade and her rescuers strolled out of Hollywood Arts.

"Jade," Beck called out after her.

But she never looked back.

"Beck," Tori asked from her prone position.

"Yes?"

"Was that Big Time Rush?"

END

PS. So, yeah. I watched Big Time Secret. Liz Gillies was gorgeous. I almost shipped her with James. What beautiful children they'd make together. Lol! I used BTR because I need someone to rescue Jade and I don't want anymore OCs. Sue me. Or don't. Whatever (But please don't sue me. I'm broke).

PPS. Rational discussion/reviews are welcome. Flames and trolls are not. I just want to get that kiss (or non-kiss) over with so I can write some fanfiction.