You can be the ghost in my hall
You can be the smile I don't want
I will be the fly on your wall
You can be the distance in between
You can be everything I need
You will be the girl I don't call.

- Jealous Minds Think Alike by You Me At Six

Insane jealousy, they called it.

People often asked him how he handled having such a jealous girlfriend. How could you breathe in a relationship like that, they wondered? Didn't she suffocate you? Didn't she wrap her arms around you so tightly you could no longer move? Didn't every little thing she ever didmake you want to come up for air?

Beck never answered any of these questions, because he knew that no matter how bad Jade could get, he was always worse. He knew it was hard to believe. But the trick was in the fact that Jade was Jade, and Beck was Beck. When Jade felt something, she never felt it half-heartedly. When she felt something, the whole world knew.

When Beck felt something, no one else had to know.

Not even Jade. She didn't know what it meant when his hand squeezed her shoulder almost imperceptibly, or when his eyes lingered too long on the boy that she was talking to for an assignment. She didn't know what it meant when he kissed her in front of his friends, in front of the rest of the school. He wasn't simply being affectionate as many people thought he was; he was letting everyone know that she was his, and no one else's.

And why shouldn't he? Jade West was his treasure. She was the girl everyone dreamed of but was too afraid to talk to, for fear of destroying the fantasy. She was beautiful, talented, mysterious, intriguing – but most of all, she was a challenge. He liked to think that because he pursued her the longest, despite her abrasiveness, and despite the many, many times she told him no. He stuck around when everyone else would have left. When everyone else would have taken a step back, he took a step forward. He may not have always felt he deserved her, but he knew that nobody else came close.

So he held her a little too close, stared a little too long, and loved her a little too much.

He fed off her doing the same. He hid his smile whenever she was angry with anyone over him, when she thought for even a moment that anybody else occupied his thoughts. It made him feel... deserving. Like Jade in all her strange, dark, and twisted perfection really loved him, and she belonged to him. He would never say so, but that was why he never refused anyone. Never a "No thanks, I'm not interested" to the girls who made advances towards him, because it was so much more interesting when Jade's bright blue eyes were aflame with jealousy.

Beck Oliver was a sadist in the worst way.

Though it amused him for a moment, he always came down from that high. He always ended up feeling wretched. He knew he hurt her, doing what he did: or more aptly, not doing anything when he should have. And he would come running back to her, taking her in his arms and reassuring her he wasn't going anywhere. He told her every day he wasn't going to leave her, that she was the only one for him.

Where would he go, really? Who would love someone like him?

After he pushed her too farand she finally stopped pushing back, he no longer had the solace of his grip tightening around her wrist or his arm bringing her closer to him to air his jealousy. He had no right to that anymore; he knew, the moment that she walked away and drove off, that the feeling of deserving her, of her being his forever, was the most painful kind of illusion there was.

He could do nothing but watch, now, as she lived her life without him.

Was it wrong to say he wanted her to be miserable? Was it wrong to want her to feel that without him, life was so much less beautiful? Yes. Yes. He knew it was wrong, it was all wrong. It was wrong, because he was trapped in the dark without her, and he only wanted to drag her down with him. He only wanted her to feel his pain. Jade West was stronger than he wanted her to be. She refused to sink with him. She played the games he'd always played with her, and she knew exactly what she was doing.

"I thought you had a date tonight," he told her that one night. It was the closest he'd been to her since they broke up.

"Why'd you think that?" she challenged him.

"It says so on your Slap page," he pointed out, an edge to his voice.

"Why are you stalking my Slap page?" she countered.

He couldn't give her a reason why, even though he knew what it was. He missed her, although he could never say it. She both intrigued and infuriated him, and it got under his skin so quickly and silently he didn't even notice. She gave him a raised eyebrow and a triumphant smile that night, and he knew that she had very well issued a challenge.

Damn if he was going to let her win.

He leaned in to kiss Tori Vega that day. She was Jade's kryptonite. She was everything Jade wasn't – bright, sunny, regretfully unguarded. She was that one person who made Jade feel, more than once, like she was that one girl Beck would eventually leave her for. It was the ultimate blow, the make-it-or-break-it move that Beck knew would either work in his favor or go terribly, terribly wrong. He would do anything to see Jade's eyes burn for him again, burn because she cared, burn because she hated what he was doing to her. He was so addicted to it. He was a desperate man, and he would try anything.

When she turned him down, he realized how far he'd fallen.

Insane jealousy, they called it.

Later, in the dark loneliness of his RV, he put his face in his hands and tried to steady his breathing. As he did, their questions returned to him. Did Jade suffocate him? Did she wrap her arms around him so tightly he could no longer move? Did every little thing she ever did make him want to come up for air?

He knew the answer to these questions now, with more certainty than ever. Beck knew that Jade had always been his air, and he was drowning without her. If she had wrapped herself around him so tightly, it had not been tight enough.

Author's Note: Yay more angst (haha…ha). Seriously, Beck and Jade need to get back together soon so I'll have fluff fuel. I was playing with the idea of "What if it's not that Beck doesn't get jealous, it's that he does but no one realizes it?" I know, it doesn't make that much sense. I was writing this on my phone in the middle of a family reunion gone wrong. Anyway, thanks so much to my beta reader xXFireRoseXx, who is rad.

Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious, but I own You Me At Six. No, just kidding. I don't own them either.