"Beca!" Aubrey frowned as she looked at the small alt girl. "We all know the choreography except you! Chloe? Explain this." Aubrey pointed to Beca while looking furiously at her red headed best friend.
Chloe was annoyed and, well, a bit ashamed. She may or may not have been keeping herself from helping Beca with the dance routine, but to her defence, Beca never cooperated. Beca hated it when she touched her and guided her through the choreography. And Beca did not mind when she gave up on helping the brunette, and being ignored by Beca irritated Chloe most of all.
"Beca hates it when I help her." Chloe finally shrugged, looking defeated, while rolling her eyes at Beca.
"I don't want your help." Beca flatly replied. Chloe looked away pointedly, her fists clenching as she folded her arms.
Aubrey pointedly stared at Beca, looking dissatisfied with Beca's retort, so Beca continued: "It is an easy routine, I will learn it as we go along and I don't need Chloe biting my head off every time I am a bit off beat. Okay?"
Chloe gave Aubrey an 'I told you so' look, and Aubrey sympathetically nodded to her best friend. God knows, she can't imagine having Beca as a stepsister and she feels sorry for Chloe.
"You kinda do need her help." Amy mumbled to nobody in particular. Stacy nodded enthusiastically to the other Bella's, and the dj rolled her eyes at them.
"Rolling your eyes won't win us Nationals, Beca!" Aubrey snapped.
"Our set won't win us Nationals, Aubrey, and our little dance routine here is not something spectacular as well. If we want to win we need to change our set. I don't think the song, I Saw The Sign, will help us win. You are ironically blind to see the signs here, Aubrey, people are bored with us! We are not going to win anything and it sucks!" Beca preached, looking for support from the other Bella's, who all suddenly took an intense interest in anything else but Beca and Aubrey.
Aubrey opened her mouth to reply, but no words were coming out. Beca thought that Aubrey might puke, and for a second felt quite bad for being so harsh.
Aubrey just had to deal with it, Beca thought angrily.
"Oh, look at that, guys. Beca actually gives a shit about a cappella." Chloe murmured sarcastically, breaking the tense silence.
"Shut up. I only do this to please my father, and because my soon to be stepsister, you, harassed me naked in a shower to join this group."
"Suddenly you are the family dependent girl. All for the family, right? I almost felt lucky just now, realising you will be my lovely stepsister." Chloe replied tartly.
"You should be." Beca smirked, and winked at Chloe.
"You got to be kidding me." But Chloe blushed. Beca said those exact words to her in the shower, when she told Beca that she was pretty confident about her body, after they sang Titanium in perfect harmony together. It worked, since Beca came to audition, but she hated Beca for bringing that up now.
"Aca-awkward." Fat Amy mumbled, and Cynthia Rose coughed awkwardly into a fist. Lily stared at them all and softly mumbled, "I kill unicorns with fire." Stacy looked confused from Lily, to Chloe and to Beca with her arms folded, and irritatingly mumbled that she needed to have some serious sex to deal with all the Bella dramas.
Meanwhile, Aubrey was red with fury. Her eyes moved from Beca to Chloe like lightning sparks. When she finally spoke, however, her words were surprisingly calm.
"I will ignore your immature outburst, Beca. Chloe will teach you the choreography when we leave here today, and if you do not know it by tomorrow, I will throw your chair out of this hall myself."
"Aubrey, give us one week." Chloe suggested quickly, knowing it would take Beca a very long time to learn all the choreography. She was so not prepared to work through the night to make it happen while enduring all the stepsister related insults from Beca.
"No, Chloe, you will teach her the moves today. I don't care whether you two will be stepsisters or not and whether you two hate each other – you just need to deal with it all! The Bella's and I are tired of your little sibling fights every time we rehearse."
Chloe and Beca stared at each other. Aubrey won the battle and they both knew she had a point. Beca and Chloe fighting constantly did make it more difficult for all the Bella's during rehearsals. Fat Amy and Cynthia Rose even started to bet money on who of the two of them would snap first during practice. Cynthia always won the bet, to Amy's dismay.
If I was actually to learn all this, at least Chloe will hate every second of teaching me the routine. Beca thought, and smirked when she saw the extreme reluctance written all over Chloe's face.
"Fine, Aubrey. I will learn the choreography tonight. I am sure Chloe will try her best to guide me through it all." Beca sweetly responded. Chloe simply glared at her.
"Don't smirk at me." Chloe warned Beca silently. "This is your fault."
"I am not smirking." Beca replied, which was technically true, since she was now smiling at Chloe.
"Urgh!" Chloe folded her arms and turned her back to Beca and the other Bella's. She looked at Aubrey for help, but Aubrey simply lifted her shoulders.
"Chloe, you are my best friend, and I have empathy with you for having this dwarf as your soon-to-be stepsister."
"Hey!" Beca interrupted Aubrey, but the blond promptly continued:
"As co-captain, Chloe, you need to take responsibility for your own personal issues to avoid teaching Beca the choreography. We compete in two weeks and we look and sound like shit." Aubrey ended her little speech rather forcefully, and nodded to the other Bella's. "Let's call it a day."
"Oh yeah! Extra time to spend with some of my boyfriends, yo. I can't wait to jump them like a kangaroo in my supah big swimming pool." Amy announced to the Bella's, seemingly unfazed now with Chloe and Beca, and by Aubrey saying that they are shit.
"You do it in the pool too?" Stacy asked Fat Amy. Fat Amy nodded and Cynthia high fived Amy. Beca silently promised herself never to swim in Fat Amy's pool. Ever.
"The rehearsal is aborted." Aubrey flatly interrupted Amy and Stacy, who were busy mimicking provocative positions while the Bella's laughed at them, even Beca started to laugh and she saw out the corner of her eye Chloe suppressing a grin too.
"Let's go party." Amy laughed and turned to leave. "Good luck there, Short Stuff, don't let the Flames burn you!" Fat Amy referred to Chloe's red hair, and winked at them both.
The Bella's followed Fat Amy out of the hall and Aubrey followed them. Aubrey stopped at the doorway, and gave Beca and Chloe an 'I-will-kill-you-if-you-fuck-this-up' look, before she swiftly turned and disappeared onto campus.
Beca looked unsurely towards Chloe. Suprisingly, Chloe was smiling at Beca.
"Why are you smiling?" Beca asked Chloe, not finding the situation humorous at all.
"I can't wait to get into your personal space, little step sister, while teaching you the entire little dance routine. If I recall correctly, you said it is an easy, stupid little dance routine, didn't you?"
"I am not your sister. I barely know you or your mother. Stop saying the word little." Beca responded, sounding bored.
"Well, that will change. Maybe you and I will dance a little piece at their wedding together." Chloe added, her blue eyes shining with mischief, "My mom and your dad will just love that." Chloe laughed when she saw an annoyed Beca looking at her with her arms folded.
"Just because my father thinks the sun shines out of your asses doesn't mean I do." Beca responded crassly, referring to Chloe and Chloe's mother. Her father liked them more than Beca, and the brunette just couldn't take that.
"Oh, but you can't deny that I do have a cute ass though, since you checked me out in the shower and admitted that I should be proud of all my, uh, assets." Chloe was walking towards Beca, and felt victorious when she saw Beca blush a little. She liked making Beca uncomfortable, and she liked that it was something she could so easily manage.
Beca gulped, what was Chloe doing?
This is definitely a different approach of interaction from the red head. Chloe was standing very close to her, and Beca could smell Chloe's perfume.
She really has pretty eyes, Beca thought. Wait. What is wrong with me? Chloe is a bitch and my soon-to-be stepsister, just because my stupid dad worships everything brilliant old Chloe does, doesn't mean I should.
Beca features hardened at her thoughts, and Chloe noticed. Chloe wondered what made Beca look so upset, so she decided to step back from the brunette. Maybe she pushed her new tactic to piss Beca off too far.
"Let's just begin, Chloe." Beca silently said. Chloe nodded and stepped into a position next to Beca. This time she chose to stand a little farther away from the dj.
"Okay. When I count to three, I want you to move your hands upwards. Like this." Chloe showed Beca the move, and Beca began to do the move as well.
"Wow, this is the first time you actually listened to me." Chloe proudly noticed. She looked appreciatively towards Beca.
"Cut the crap, Beale. Just continue so that we can get this over with. I don't exactly want to spend the whole night in your company."
Chloe looked a bit hurt, but recovered quickly. "I agree. I had to cancel my plans with Tom during practice so that I can do this for you, you know."
"Do this for me? How sweet. You are the co-captain, suck it up. And Tom looks like an asshole, so it is not exactly a loss."
"Oh, please, Beca. You blame the whole world for being assholes even though, in my book, you are the biggest asshole."
"Just continue, Chloe!" Beca yelled. Fighting with Chloe was not going to make this any easier.
Glancing sideways to Chloe, the red head seemed surprisingly happy to continue. Chloe happily took one step sideways which Beca dumbly followed, making Chloe smirk. And if Beca was being honest with herself, she wanted so much to smirk at the redhead as well.