AN: For the Save the Date: The Prequel to Every Wedding event.

Summary: Jade keeps cutting him off, won't let him get the words out, won't let him ask the question.

Warnings:

Disclaimer: I don't own "Victorious".

Not a Single Word

Beck Oliver loves Jade West. He's loved her since he was fourteen and too stupid to even know what love really meant. And Jade, he's pretty sure, has loved him just as long. They're not perfect, of course. They've had their ups and downs, their break-ups and make-ups. Hurt feelings and wounded pride. Screaming and shouting matches that lasted for hours or days. Arguments where nobody won and everybody lost.

But that's how they work, how they've always worked. And no matter who says what, they always, always come back together again.

They were Hollywood Arts power couple for four years. They've dominated at Julliard for the last three years. And they're going to be forever. Beck can feel it. In the blood pulsing through his veins and the marrow of his bones, Beck knows. Jade is The One. It's sappy and cliché and something Jade would punch his arm or slap his chest for ever saying out loud, but it's true. In all the world, there's only Jade West for him. Nobody else could ever mean half as much to him.

Which is why he's decided to ask her to marry him. Decided a while ago, actually. He'd almost asked the night of their high school graduation. Had a ring and everything. But it would have been another cliché, and Jade would have said no on principle alone. So he didn't.

He's been waiting. The silver band—because Jade prefers silver over gold in all things—burning a hole in his pocket. A garnet stone in place of a diamond—because Jade thinks diamonds are boring and her favorite color is garnet. It's the perfect ring for her. Picked out over three long months, while he labored over which one to get, which one would make her drop her ice queen façade—just for a moment, just for a second—and give him the joy of seeing her honest to god smile. It been hidden in his pocket, his drawer, his closet, and, once, his shoe. But he has found the right time. Hasn't asked.

Until now.

They're at a graveyard, because his love is morbid and he knows it. It's dark. Mostly cloudy, but the moon is visible more than not. Beautiful the way Jade likes things to be beautiful, with the chance that something terrible is about to happen or go horribly wrong at a moment's notice. She's sitting beneath a tree, twisted and bare, it's leaves long since fallen. Beck thinks she looks breathtaking in the moonlight and shadows, his dark lady of the night. She looks like Death incarnate, a creator and destroyer of worlds, and she is beautiful.

It's the perfect night to finally, finally ask the question that's been sitting on his tongue for three years.

He gets on one knee, grinning like a fool as he pulls out the box, opens his mouth, and…

"Not a single word, Beck."

His jaw slams closed with an audible clack.

"Back in the pocket."

In goes the box with the ring and the oh so important question.

"Now get over here and kiss me."

There will be another time, a perfect time. Beck's sure of it.

Halloween. It's time. It's going to be perfect this time. An all-night murder movie marathon, and then the question. The original Halloween and Friday the Thirteenth movies, the first Nightmare on Elm Street. The classics.

The apartment is pitch black before the credits start to roll, and this is it. This is the moment. Beck slips to the floor, ring in hand, and…

"Not a single word, Beck."

His jaw snaps closed. Again.

"Put it away."

His treacherous hand obeys. He's starting to think that maybe this is personal, that maybe she doesn't want to marry him. It would still be okay. He loves her. A ring and ceremony and a little slip of paper can't make that any more or less true. But…Jade is a jealous and possessive lover, snapping at every lingering gaze and every flirty comment. He doesn't understand why she wouldn't want to actually get married. The ceremony, the paper, the ring. All things that say, "This is Beck Oliver, and he's mine. Forever. Back the fuck off before I cut a bitch".

He can't imagine a reason that Jade wouldn't want the proof of her ownership all over him.

Unless, of course, she doesn't want to own him at all anymore.

It's not a good feeling. The sick nervousness her rejections have created in him. A constant knot of dread coiled in his stomach and twisting snakes of panic tangled around his heart while anxious eyes follow her more closely than ever. There's no signs of interest in anyone else, thank god. Or any lessening in her aggression toward Beck's ever hopeful fans.

Nothing has changed, nothing to make him think she loves him less. Nothing to tell him why she doesn't want to marry him, doesn't even want him to ask.

He wants to talk about it, find out what he's done wrong. If he's done something wrong. If this is another one of her things that she hates for the sake of hating. If this is one of her things she hates because she has a legitimate reason to hate it. If there's a special way he has to go about asking her to even get the chance to, you know, ask.

But when he opens his mouth, the words get all jumbled and stuck and what comes out isn't what he'd meant to say.

He's scared. Because what if he's wrong? What if Jade is his One, but he's not hers? What if he asks the questions, and he doesn't like the answers?

When Beck comes home, the apartment is dark. That's…weird. Jade is always home before him, and while his girlfriend loves the dark and often turns off all the lights when she's writing a particularly disturbing piece, he can still normally see the light from her laptop. But there's no light at all.

Beck doesn't like this.

Then the lights all come on at once, and there are people everywhere wearing massive grins and shouting "Surprise!" and "Congratulations!". There are streamers hanging up and Tori and Andre's band is all set up and a buffet of food and an actual, honest to god punch bowl.

Beck is confused.

Jade comes up to him and kisses him, wearing the closest approximation to a smile as she ever does when they're not alone.

Beck is very, very confused.

"Uh…" Words fail him. It isn't his birthday. He hasn't gotten word back on that play he'd auditioned for a few days ago. And his agent hasn't called to tell he's gotten a job. He hasn't done anything to warrant a celebratory surprise party. And yet…

"Just a single word, Beck." Jade whispers in his ear, left hand coming up to cover his silent lips.

Which is when he sees, and feels, the ring.

His ring. His ring for her. The ring he was going to use to propose. On her ring finger. Where one would typically put an engagement ring.

His ring, his engagement ring, is on her finger.

He breathes her name against her palm and her infamous smirk is twisted across her lips. He sucks in a massive breath when she takes her hand back. "Yes."

He could never have said anything else.

It doesn't matter that he wasn't the one proposing, that he never got to ask the question that he'd been choking back since he graduated high school. It doesn't matter that her idea of a proposal wasn't a proposal at all so much as it was her informing him of their impending nuptials via surprise party. He didn't get to take the knee, and say the perfect words, and slip the ring onto her finger.

It wasn't the perfect proposal he'd planned.

It's so much better.

Because it's so totally Jade. Of course, she'd never wait for him to ask her to marry him. Of course, she'd let him know when she was ready to let him be her fiancé. Of course, it would happen exactly like this. Despite all his plans, all the things he thought he'd needed to get right. It was always going to happen just like this.

On Jade's terms.

Like everything else in their relationship from day one. He should have known better.

With a massive grin he wraps his hand around Jade's, slips his fingers into the spaces between hers.