Beca is determined to do something special for their anniversary. She knows Aubrey already has reservations at a nice restaurant for the actual night, and that Chloe is busy planning a weekend away for the three of them once Nationals is over, but Beca wants to do something special for the two of them as well. She just isn't sure what.
She can't compete with Chloe at romantic gestures will never be able to plan anything better than Aubrey. She'd do something musical, but between the hours she spends at the radio station and with the Bellas, it doesn't seem special enough, at least not on its own.
She has money saved up that she could use to get them something, but she wants her first anniversary with them to be about more than just spending money. She knows Aubrey loves providing for them, loves giving them the best that she can when she spends money on them, but for Beca it would feel like a cop out more than a romantic gesture.
Still, maybe dinner is a good idea. Beca hasn't made dinner for the other two the whole time they've been together, so making a romantic meal for the three of them to share would be a special gesture, as well as taking care of her soulmates. It's the perfect gift, Beca thinks, combining elements that mean a lot to both of her soulmates.
There's only one problem. She can't cook.
On a good day she can manage macaroni and cheese, maybe a grilled cheese or something just as simple. On a bad day, even looking at a stove has even odds of starting a fire. Still, Beca wants to do this for her girlfriends, and she has a month. Surely she can find something simple to make that still manages to be romantic and thoughtful.
Her father bans her from his kitchen after her third recipe attempt, not angry at the scorch marks she's left on his cabinets, but definitely concerned for her safety. And probably the safety of his house, Beca has to admit as they put out the last few hot spots. She still has three weeks though, so she's not giving up.
Jesse offers to help her next, glad to give her the use of the Treble's kitchen for practice. "A bunch of college bachelors in one house? The place has seen plenty of flare ups, and Benji has a lot of practice putting them out" he jokes when she mentions the problem during a shift at the station, reminding her once again how lucky she is to have him as a friend. She's constantly grateful that he was willing to forgive her when she'd apologized and explained why she'd shut him out.
She's lucky again when he saves her from serious burns, grabbing the Treble's fire extinguisher as soon as the flames appear, calling out for Benji when it doesn't seem to help, dropping the extinguisher and pulling Beca away from the flames as the other man somehow gets the fire to die.
"Maybe we start with an easier recipe" is all he says as they clean up, and Beca just rolls her eyes as she reminds herself again that it really is nice of him to help her out. By the time Beca has to leave for Bella's practice she's managed to feed the Trebles, though she isn't happy enough with the recipes to make any of them for her girlfriends. Cooking for hungry college boys is different than cooking for the loves of her life, after all.
She still has two weeks though, and it's definitely progress, so she's still not giving up. She can do this, she's sure of that much.
The Bellas of course notice the smell of smoke as soon as she arrives, and even with Nationals less than a month away they won't let her start rehearsals until they get an answer out of her. Once she admits to her idea of a romantic dinner, it takes another ten minutes for the expected responses, from Lilly murmuring something inaudible while flicking a lighter to Cynthia Rose offering seafood recipes with a smirk.
Beca eventually gets them to focus when she promises to stay after rehearsals if they'll all just shut up and work on the tricky harmonies in the second transition for the rest of practice already. It seems to work, but she finds herself threatening to bring back cardio multiple times as the others shoot her knowing looks or vaguely suggestive gestures the whole time.
They do manage to make it through the hours relatively focused though, so with a sigh Beca sends her soulmates a text as practice winds down, letting them know that she has things to discuss with the Bellas and that she'll be a little late. As expected, the former captains are more than understanding of extra time with the team, and Beca resigns herself to the coming conversation with another sigh.
And sure enough, all nine of the other Bellas stick around for the discussion with grins on their faces. Even the two new girls who weren't around to see the drama between Aubrey and Beca have heard the stories from the others, much to Beca's embarrassment. Looking back, she has to admit that the drama between them had to be entertaining from an outside viewpoint, like watching a train wreck without the moral dilemma of actual human suffering.
Even after a year of dating they're still lightheartedly adversarial at times, which is part of the reason Beca wants to pull off a romantic dinner for her girlfriends this year, to go above and beyond what they expect of her. They all know the big romantic gestures are Chloe's department, not Beca's. So if she can pull this off she'll definitely manage to surprise her soulmates, giving her ammo for her next lighthearted argument with the blonde, as well as showing the two of them how much she loves them.
"So you're making them dinner for your anniversary? Doesn't that seem a little bland?" Amy asks as they all settle into chairs, nine sets of eyes focused on Beca as she squirms.
"It's not bland" Beca says defensively, crossing her arms over her chest. "I've never made them dinner before, so it's not like it's something I do all the time."
"Yeah well, you could always just skip to dessert" comes Amy's response with a suggestive gesture and look that earns a nod of agreement from Stacie, as well as bringing what Beca thinks might be a permanent blush to her cheeks.
"Dude, cool it a little! This is my first anniversary with them, I have to get this right, and since this is Aubrey and Chloe we're talking about, it has to be perfect and over the top romantic" Beca says without thinking, the blatant innuendo from her teammate throwing her.
"Aww, Beca's being all romantic" Denise laughs from her seat across the circle, earning a glare from Beca that sends the others into laughter as well.
"Never pictured you for a romantic B" Cynthia Rose teases as Beca seriously considers walking out of the room, only the knowledge that they'd probably drag her back keeping her in the chair.
"I'm dating Chloe, some of it rubbed off" Beca mumbles, only realizing her mistake when Amy repeats her earlier gesture and the others start cracking up again. "Dudes, so not what I meant! This isn't helpful, you know!" she says, hiding her face in her hands and wishing the topic had never come up.
"Okay, so what's the problem then?" Jessica or Ashley asks when the others settle, leaning forward in her chair with a serious look on her face.
"I can't really cook" Beca admits quietly, not meeting anyone's eyes as she does. "That's why the smoke smell, I almost set the Treble house on fire practicing over there before practice."
"While that would definitely break their concentration right before Nationals, I don't think that's the way to go about either goal, Beca" Amy says with a smirk. "Plus, did you really go to a bunch of wannabe frat guys over nine of your closest friends, any of whom would be a better choice of help?"
"Jesse said they were used to cooking fires" Beca again defends, feeling like the other girls are definitely ganging up on her when they all nod their agreement with Amy.
"No, Amy's right" Stacie says immediately. "I've got some really good recipes that I'm sure you can pull off, and Lilly's got the fire thing down on our end, so we're all good there. We've got to be better at helping you pull this off than a group of bachelors who live on takeout."
Looking around at the Bellas again nodding their agreement, Beca knows she isn't going to win this argument. "Fine" she says with a sigh, reluctantly conceding to the looks from her friends. "Not tonight though, I just want to get home and shower right now. I'll be at the Bella house tomorrow after my shift, whoever isn't in class can help me out." She really should have expected the comments about showers as she stands to leave, the story of how Chloe got her to audition is practically a Bella legend at this point despite only having two new girls and it only happening last season.
She's pretty sure Stacie is skipping class to be there the next day, but the blonde just shrugs without answering when Beca asks, flitting around the kitchen as she finds spices and other ingredients for the recipes she wants Beca to try. Lilly is obligingly set up at the kitchen table, ignoring the two of them for now as she focuses on her phone. Amy thankfully has a class she can't miss, and apparently so do Jessica and Ashley. She isn't sure where the others are, but Beca thinks maybe the fact that Lilly and fire might be involved have scared them away.
"Okay, so we'll start with some easy recipes" Stacie says when she finishes assembling what looks like the entire pantry on the kitchen island. "I was thinking spaghetti first, which can totally be romantic if none of the others work out. And it's easy, so it's a good place to start practicing."
Beca is a little relieved, because she knows spaghetti is like the easiest pasta to make, and even if it's a little simpler than she'd like to serve her girlfriends, it's also a decent ways outside of her culinary comfort zone. Especially when Stacie starts with the sauce, giving Beca a look when she asks where the cans are that quickly silences the brunette. Apparently they're not using canned sauce, which moves this from relatively simple to an actual challenge.
Predictably, Beca manages to ruin the sauce, adding the wrong spices in the wrong amounts, and forgetting to stir often enough so she ends up with the bottom scorching before she can save it. Stacie just takes it as a challenge though, and since she didn't actually set anything on fire, Beca's willing to continue with the lessons.
She quickly finds out that Stacie is harder to please than the Trebles, which makes sense when she thinks about it. Still, she's also a much better teacher, and by the end of the day Beca is relatively confident in her ability to make an edible spaghetti sauce. She still wants to try another recipe if she can, but making dinner for her soulmates doesn't seem like such an insane idea now.
The other recipes Stacie has her try are definitely more difficult though, and Beca is beginning to think spaghetti might end up being what she makes after all. She's decent with pastas, but sauces are the bane of her existence, and any time she has to do anything with meat she's almost guaranteed to set something on fire.
On the plus side, she's never seen Lilly so happy, so at least something positive is coming from her mistakes.
With only a week left before their anniversary, Beca is out of time for backup plans, so she's determined to make this one work out. There's no way she's going to disappoint her soulmates on their first anniversary. Especially not when Chloe lets hints about their weekend slip, and Aubrey brings up a shopping trip for new outfits before her date night to celebrate. Both of her soulmates are definitely going all out, and Beca can't let them down.
Wednesdays are always both Chloe and Aubrey's late nights, so Beca is determined to have a recipe down before then, knowing that she'll have plenty of time to prepare the apartment before they get home. Since that gives her three days to get a recipe down, Beca goes back to spaghetti, determined to make something edible, even if it's not as special as she'd prefer.
Given how many times she's practiced this one recipe, Beca is surprised at how nervous she feels when she gets home Wednesday, and quickly get things set up, channeling the nerves into the preparations.
Setting up the table and candles are the easiest part, but they help Beca calm herself down a little, even if she does keep changing where things go, trying to find the perfect setup to make things look perfect. Eventually though, she has to start cooking, or she won't get the food finished by the time her soulmates get home, which is completely against the plan.
She ends up texting Stacie every few minutes despite the practice, needing confirmation of every step before she makes it, desperate to make no mistakes. She won't let her teammate come over to help though, stubbornly insisting that she can do it on her own. She ignores Stacie's comment that asking for directions isn't really doing it on her own, because that's totally different, right? She's still the one doing the cooking.
She probably paying too much attention to the sauce as it simmers, but she's not going to risk it scorching tonight or anything else happening to ruin it. She's going to be careful, double check everything she does, and make sure that things are perfect.
It's almost time for Chloe to get home when Beca notices the time, and she scrambles to light the candles and dim every light she doesn't need for cooking before the redhead walks in, dashing madly between the kitchen and other rooms to get everything set up the way she wants.
She's barely gotten the last candle lit and is checking on the sauce one last time when she hears the door open, and tears off the apron she's put on over her relatively nice outfit so she can meet her girlfriend in the entryway, tossing it behind her as she rushes out of the kitchen. She'd try to pretend she isn't nervous, but she can't manage to catch her breath, and Chloe would know anyway.
"Beca?" Chloe asks as she takes in the carefully set table, lit only by candlelight and what light shines out from the kitchen. "What's all this?"
"I wanted to do something nice, for our anniversary" Beca says, trying for a casual tone, but wincing at the nervous tremor she hears in her voice. So much for playing it cool.
"It's beautiful" Chloe says with a smile, pulling Beca close for a soft kiss before pulling back to take in the scene in front of her. "You did all this for us?"
"Well yeah, I mean you guys deserve the best, and it's our first anniversary all together, so I wanted it to be special, you know? And I know Bree already has the night of claimed, so I figured this was close enough." Beca would have kept rambling, but she sees Chloe's eyes widen in alarm as she stares behind her girlfriend, and turns in time to see a small wisp of smoke drift out of the kitchen. "Oh, fuck!" Beca yells, rushing as quickly as she can to see what could possibly have gone wrong after she was so careful all day.
When she gets to the doorway, Beca curses again, taking in the sight of the apron she'd tossed behind herself earlier, now smoldering as it sits far too close to the burner for safety. She doesn't even think, just turns the sink on and grabs the pressure sprayer, dousing the apron in cold water. She forgets about the sauce in her haste to keep the apartment from going up in smoke, and only remembers when the water turns to steam as it hits the hot pan and burner.
"Oh, fuck" she says again, dropping the pressure sprayer in favor of grabbing the apron, throwing it into the sink under the running water, trying not to wince when the still hot burnt edge hits her forearm, too busy trying to see what damage has been done to her precious sauce to bother with the pain.
"Becs, you okay?" she hears from the doorway as she stares down into the ruins of their dinner, refusing to cry. She doesn't cry, damn it. It's just the steam still wafting up, that's all. But she'd wanted this evening to be perfect, had tried so hard to make things perfect for her soulmates. "Oh baby, it's okay, don't cry."
"I'm not crying" Beca stubbornly insists, turning the burners off and pushing the ruined sauce off the heat, before turning to face her girlfriend, suddenly not wanting to face the mess she'd made of their dinner. "It's the steam."
She can tell Chloe isn't fooled, but the redhead is distracted before she can comment, noticing the slight burn on Beca's arm. "You're hurt!" Chloe exclaims, carefully grabbing Beca's arm and raising it to examine the welt that's forming.
"It's nothing" Beca says weakly, even though she's starting to feel the heat now that the adrenaline is wearing off.
"Run it under cold water while I get the first aid kit" Chloe says, ignoring the protest completely as she inspects the burn. "I'll get it wrapped up, but it doesn't look too bad. We can check it again tomorrow, make sure it's not worse than it looks now."
Normally Beca would argue, but she's in some kind of emotional shock after the complete mess she's made of the evening, so without a word she does as Chloe had said, holding her forearm under the cool water. It does help, she reluctantly admits to herself, even if she feels like the pain is probably a little deserved for making such a stupid mistake as throwing an apron towards a hot stove.
When Chloe gets back she bandages the burn like a pro, earning a raised eyebrow from Beca before the brunette remembers that the redhead had taken several first aid classes in preparation for being a tutor, even if they weren't required of her since she isn't a licensed educator at this point.
"Thanks" Beca says when Chloe finishes, leaning forward for a kiss. "I'm sorry I ruined dinner and made you patch me up."
Whatever Chloe was going to say goes unsaid as the front door opens again, Aubrey stepping inside with a stack of pizza boxes carefully balanced in her hand. Beca feels her jaw drop at the sight, even though her dinner is now a watery mess in the kitchen, she's vaguely offended that her soulmate had shown up with pizza. "You brought pizza?" Beca asks as she stares at her girlfriend, not noticing when Chloe stands to help Aubrey before the boxes fall.
"Stacie said I should" is all Aubrey says, but Beca can see a small smirk tugging at the blonde's mouth.
"They have no faith in me" Beca mutters in response, shaking her head as she stands as well, finally noticing that both of her girlfriends are in the dining room while she's sitting on the couch.
"Well, she didn't really explain, just said something about fires and better safe than sorry" Aubrey explains, no longer even trying to hide her smirk at Beca's expression.
"Hey, I was doing fine with the food!" Beca defends. "It was the apron that got me." She's waving her arms around a little dramatically and she knows it, but really, is a little confidence in her abilities too much to ask for? The sauce had been fine before it got doused in water.
"Beca, what happened to your arm?" she hears Aubrey exclaim, tone now full of worry with no trace of teasing.
"I kind of grabbed a burning apron to throw it in the sink and the edge caught me?" Beca says sheepishly, finding her annoyance with her friend disappearing behind embarrassment at making such a clumsy mistake.
"Are you okay?" Aubrey asks, stepping closer and reaching out for the arm in question.
"She's fine" Chloe steps in, laying a calming hand on Aubrey's shoulder. "It wasn't too bad of a burn, just put a little salve on it and wrapped it up. It should be fine in a day or two, but we're going to check in the morning to be sure."
"What was so important that you risked hurting yourself over?" Aubrey asks, no reproach, even jokingly, in her voice for a change, just genuine concern for Beca's wellbeing. A year ago Beca wouldn't have expected the care to be directed at her, and even with the mess she's made of the night she has to smile at how far they've come since those troubled days before sorting things out.
"I wanted to do something special for our anniversary" she starts, seeing the smile on Aubrey's at the words, the same smile Chloe had worn earlier. "I was making spaghetti, which I've actually gotten pretty good at over the last week. It just didn't end up like I'd planned."
"There's always next year" Chloe says with a smile, earning a disbelieving look from both of her girlfriends at that.
"I think next year my gift is going to be not cooking" Beca says with a small laugh. "At least this time Aubrey brought pizza."
"The benefit of having me as a soulmate, Beca, is that I'll always be around to pick up your mess" Aubrey teases, back to their usual banter now that she's convinced Beca is okay.
"Oh shut up and let's eat" Chloe says with a laugh, kissing each of her girlfriends before settling into her chair.
As Beca settles next to her, she thinks that maybe she's done okay tonight, even if she didn't manage to cook successfully. She's still made her soulmates smile, so she'll count it as a win any day.
Author's Note: I'd still love any and all prompts you guys would like to see for this verse, or for any other verse with these three together, or Beca and Chloe together. I'm loving writing the three of them together more than I'd thought I would, so if you've got anything you want to see from the three of them, let me know and I'll do my best to deliver!