I'm not really sure why I'm posting this mess. I don't consider myself to be a good writer, or storyteller at that. But, this is over 4 thousand words of nonsense, and I figured maybe I would share it. Maybe someone out there will like it.
Shout-out to Casey for making me the cover art for this.
"Bec!"
She's in her music room, which really, it's just the small spare bedroom in their already small Los Angeles apartment. But, Beca insists on calling it her music room, even if it is filled with (still) unpacked boxes, hundreds of Jesse's (annoying) DVD's on his shelves, and everything else that doesn't seem to fit elsewhere in their tiny living space.
"Yeah?" She calls back to him, looking through one of the many boxes with her name on it for a CD she needed for the mix she was currently working on.
She hears his footprints start to make their way to her before he appears in the doorway. "Is there a reason why the dishes aren't done yet?"
"Yeah," she says, looking back down into the box she's focused on. "I didn't want to."
"Bec," he begins.
"For fucks sake, Jesse. I'll do them. Later. Or tomorrow. Whenever. It doesn't matter," she pushes the box she was looking in aside, moving towards the next box besides it.
"We've been in this apartment for a month. You have somehow managed to get yourself out of all household chores."
"Yeah, yeah, real shame, I know. It's bothering me, too," she's waving her hand in the air, brushing him off, still looking for the item on her mind.
"Beca."
"Can't you see I'm in the middle of something?" She looks up at him, exasperated. All she wants to do is find her CD and mix something, can he not see that?
"Beca, you go do those dishes now, or," she sees him teetering with his words. Well, she hears him, because really, she's not paying any attention to him. "Or, we won't have sex for a month."
She rolls her eyes from her spot on the floor. "That's hilarious, Jesse. Like you could last a month without sex."
"I could last longer than you," he says. She scoffs at his remark. "Just do the dishes, Beca."
Beca doesn't do the dishes.
It's not until later that she finally joins him on the couch. She curls into his side on reflex, noting the movie he has playing on their big screen TV, a housewarming gift from Beca's mom when the two finally made the move to Los Angeles after graduation. She doesn't recognize the movie he has on; it's not like she usually does, anyway.
"Whatcha doing?"
"Watching the movie. Shh." He doesn't even look at her when he responds, just keeps his head facing straight towards the television.
Beca's grateful that he knows to leave her alone when she's mixing at night, but she's done now and she just wishes he would turn the damn movie off and pay her some attention. She lets it go for a good five minutes, trying to get herself interested in whatever film he had playing.
"Jesse, I'm bored," she complains.
"I'm trying to watch this, you know."
She leans her head against his shoulder, looking up at him. "You can watch this another time. Let's do something else."
"I'm going to watch this now," he wraps his arm around her and pulls her in close.
"Jesse," she whines, but it does nothing.
He doesn't acknowledge that she's even said anything. He keeps his face engrossed in his dumb movie. So, she decides to try a new tactic. She tilts her head up towards his and starts leaving a trail of kisses down his neck, but he just sits there.
Eyes completely zoned in on the movie.
She pushes herself up a little further against him and starts leaving quick kisses on his forehead, his cheek, finally covering his mouth with her own.
But, nothing.
He doesn't even kiss her back.
She pulls away from him. "What the hell, Jesse?"
"You knew the deal."
"What deal? What are you talking about?"
"No dishes, no sex," he lifts up the small DVD remote control to hit the pause button.
"That wasn't a deal, you were joking." Beca laughs up at him from her spot on the couch. "You just wanted me to do the dishes because you didn't want to."
"I wasn't joking. You didn't want to do the dishes and help out a bit around here," he smirks down at her. "You can kiss your sex life goodbye until August."
"I don't need you," she tests him. "There's plenty of men out there to help me satisfy my needs."
"If that's what you feel you must do," he shrugs.
Beca pauses for a moment, just watching him as he looks at her. She's quick to push herself up to her knees and push her mouth against his in another kiss. She tries to deepen it, but he grabs her shoulders and pushes her away.
"No sex for a month."
"Fine." She swings her feet to the floor, stomping down the little hallway to their bedroom. "You can sleep on the couch tonight, asshole!"
The door slam echoes in his ear from the living room.
Beca wakes up the next morning to find the right side of the bed still empty. She's happy he listened to her, but she's also pissed. She didn't sleep well at all, and she hates him for it. She hates that she's gotten so used to having his warmth and comfort at night to help lull her to sleep.
She swings her legs to her side and makes her way out to the front of their apartment, finding Jesse still asleep on the couch. She kneels at his side, cupping the side of his face and caressing his cheek with her small thumb. He comes to consciousness slowly, a smile gracing his face when he sees her in front of him.
"G'morning," he stifles a yawn.
"Morning," she replies. She bits her lower lip before whispering, "I'm sorry. About last night."
"It's okay."
"I might have overreacted."
"Just a little bit," he uses his thumb and index finger to indicate the small amount.
"So…we're good? We're okay?"
"We're good."
Beca leans in to cover his mouth with her own and he's happy to ease into it. She's quick to deepen the kiss, wrapping her arm around his neck to pull him even closer. It's not enough for Beca, though. She's raises herself up and pushes herself up on the couch with him, straddling his frame as he lies on his back.
She's still busy with his mouth when she takes her hands and runs them underneath the tee shirt he had on for bed. She starts trailing kisses down his neck, and works her way down to his chest, rolling her hips against his, eager for things to move forward.
Then everything seems to come to a halt.
Jesse pushes himself up, hands placed firmly on her hips, keeping her at a firm distance.
"Okay, what's happening?" She breathes out quickly.
"The deals still on, Bec."
"Jesse."
"All I asked was if you could do the dishes. It would have taken you five minutes. But you ignored me, just like you've ignored all other responsibilities since we moved here a month ago."
"I'll start helping! I promise, I will. Can we just…"
"No. We can't."
She lifts herself off of him in seconds, her feet landing on the hard wood floors. "I take back my apology from earlier. Talk to me when you've realized how stupid this."
Jesse's not surprised when Beca gives him the cold shoulder for the next few days. Sure, she'll mumble a response here and there, but all in all, she doesn't want to be bothered with him. He expected it; he hasn't dated Beca for almost four years and not learned anything about her. He's picked up a few tricks here and there. One of those tricks including: leave Beca alone when she's angry.
She'll come around in a day or so.
Jesse comes home three days after their small disagreement to find Beca sitting on their grey couch watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens in jeans and only a bra. And not just any bra, the navy blue lace bra that she knows makes him go crazy.
And Star Wars? He had a tough enough time getting her to the movie theater to see it when it came out, and now she's watching it, willingly, on her own? Sure, she didn't hate the movie, but she still wasn't one to pick up a DVD and watch it on her own accord.
"Hey, babe," she says from her spot on the couch, shooting a smirk in his direction. "How was work today?"
"Work was…" Jesse notices his car keys still in his hand, he tosses them into the small wicker basket they keep on the kitchen counter. "Work was fine."
"That's great. I'm glad to hear that," she says. "I've got a movie on, do you want to join me?
"Umm…" He hates that he's stuttering over his words, because he knows exactly what she's up to. "Sure, okay. Yeah, let's watch it."
He makes his way over to her, and she's fast to push herself close to his side. She leans against him, throwing her legs over his lap. She reaches for his left hand and tangles their fingers together loosely. Her head rests against his chest and Jesse only hopes she doesn't hear the raggedy breath he takes when he feels her skin against the fabric of his shirt.
"I'm glad your home," she says quietly against him.
She rubs her cheek against his chest when he decides to ask, "Have you ate dinner yet?"
"No," she sighs. "I was waiting for you."
"Want to go grab a pizza down the street?"
"What about the movie?"
"We've already seen it," he pushes her to the side when he gets up. "We can watch it later. Or another time."
"Okay," she says. "If you insist."
"Go throw on a shirt, we'll grab some dinner."
She saunters off down the hall in search for proper clothing when he lets out a breath he hopes she doesn't hear.
He is not about to let Beca make him cave that easily.
"You have any plans for your day off today?" Jesse's pulling on his darkest pair of jeans in their bedroom, readying himself for work.
"I'll probably just mix some things. Nothing special," she smiles up at him from her laying posting on their bed. She made sure to only wear a tank top to bed last night, but he didn't seem to be phased by her attempts to make him forget the whole 'no sex for a month' deal this morning. It's only been about a week and she feels like she's ready to burst. "What's going on at the office today?"
He's in the ensuite bathroom now and she can hear the faucet running over his voice. "I'm not sure. I think we might be getting to start shadowing some actual composers soon, though."
"That's exciting."
"It should be," he grabs his phone off the end table on his side of the bed. "Alright, I'm gonna get going." He moves over to her side of the bed, leaning down to softly kiss her lips. "I'll see you later."
"Okay." Jesse leans down to leave a lingering kiss on her forehead before making his way out their bedroom door. She hears their front door close softly behind him.
Then she gets to work.
Jesse comes home from his nine hour day at his internship, prepared to find the apartment just like he left it. Dishes in the sink from last night, plus an additional mess from the meals Beca probably cooked throughout the day. And any other messes she decided to get herself into.
He didn't mind helping out around the house, he didn't even mind doing the majority of their household chores. They'd been out here a month, though, and Beca made no attempt to ever contribute. His internship was demanding, usually leaving him occupied for nine or ten hours a day, and all he wanted to do most of the time was come home, sit on their couch and relax.
Beca's job at the coffee house down the block left her with two days off a week and her continuing internship with Residual Heat had not yet been too demanding on her. He thought she might have at least tried to be more helpful with their new found responsibilities.
He makes his way down to the last apartment door on the left, walking in to find the house…spotless.
The kitchen was clean, bare of any dishes or mess. The living room was free of the DVD's they'd watched throughout the week, blankets all folded in a neat pile. He makes his way down the small hallway, noticing the floors had definitely been vacuumed. The spare bedroom they had, had been cleaned up, too. Yes, there was still boxes that needed to be unpacked, but they were all pushed to the back of the room in neat stacks.
"Bec?" He keeps moving towards their bedroom. "Did you do this?"
She's standing by their window when he finally makes his way into the room and she's dressed in the equivalent of nothing. He groans internally, because really, this woman will be the death of him. She's dressed in only a flannel, with just the bottom three buttons clasped together. That lacy, navy blue bra protruding out from where she left the rest of the shirt unbuttoned. And to top it all off, she's not even wearing any pants. Just matching dark blue panties that he can see peeking out from where her flannel is too short to cover.
He really could kill her for this.
"I cleaned the apartment today!"
"I've noticed," he replies and he keeps his distance from her. "What inspired this?"
"I know I haven't been the best of help around here," she starts slowly. Jesse sits at the edge of the bed. "And I'm…I'm sorry. I just thought I would do this for you, because I know you're working hard at this internship and I just…"
She stops there and he understands. He knows it's hard for her to express her feelings in words, and he knows it probably always will be. "Bec…thank you for helping out today." He smiles over at her. "I thought I was going to have to clean up tonight…when all I wanted to do was relax and watch some TV with you. So, really, thank you."
She shimmies her way over to him, grips his shoulders and straddles herself on his lap, not wasting anytime in covering his mouth with her own. She's fast and needy with him, slipping her tongue in his mouth and he's too quick to respond with the same action. She pulls away, only to push him onto his back against the bed. She inches her body up further against his chest, only to continue her attack on his lips.
She starts moving her kisses elsewhere, to anywhere his skin is accessible. She reaches down to grab the ends of his work shirt and begins pulling it up. He's quick to arch his back so she can pull it up over his head and toss it across the room. He grabs the back of her head and briskly brings her face back down to meet his own. He feels his own hands start to roam against her body and Beca lifts herself up to rip the flannel off of herself when Jesse shoots himself up into a sitting position.
"No," his voice is loud and she groans from her position on top of him. "No, no, no. You know the deal."
"But I cleaned the whole apartment!"
"So, your saying the only reason you cleaned up today was in hopes that I'd have sex with you?"
"No," she protests. "I really learned my lesson. I really did, I promise, so can we just continue?"
"No, we can't!"
She swings herself off the bed, "This is really stupid, Jesse. Really fucking stupid."
At the moment, Jesse can't say he disagrees with her. He can't seem to understand what possessed him to make this bargain with her over doing the dishes. He just thought she might be a little quicker to get them done with an ultimatum, but this is Beca he's talking about. He's still not about to let her win at this little game, even if he does hate himself for being the one to put the rule in place.
Only twenty-one days left to go. He can totally make it that long, right?
The tension between them becomes unbearable for him.
Jesse tries to keep as much space between the two of them as possible because he's pretty sure he's seconds away from giving into temptations. Especially because they're on day sixteen of his stupid rule and Beca has insisted in walking around the apartment in only a bra ever since she cleaned up five days ago.
She hadn't tried anything drastic since her last attempt, but just seeing her was making him lose his mind. He knows his girlfriend, though, and he knows for a fact she's not going to just sit around and let him prove to her that he can, in fact, last a month without sex. That's not how Beca's mind worked and he knew she would have something else up her sleeve sooner or later.
He's in the shower around 6:30 AM on a very warm Monday morning, getting himself together for the day ahead at his internship. Jesse's washing his face with his daily cleanser, letting the water from the shower head fall against his skin, when he feels two small hands against the skin of his back.
Beca.
"Good morning," her voice is soft against the water while she slowly starts placing kisses against the wet skin of his back.
"Beca." Jesse keeps his back towards her. "What are you doing?"
She wraps her arms around his waist from behind, resting the side of her face against him. "I thought we could have some time together this morning."
"No, you didn't." Her hands start to roam the front of his body. "You thought you could come in here and try to convince me to give in."
She squeezes him tightly, kisses his shoulder and says, "And how am I doing?"
"It's tempting, I must say." He grabs her wrists with his hands when he feels her start to move her hands south and turns himself around to face her. "But, I am much stronger than these futile attempts."
"Why are you doing this to yourself? Over me not doing the dishes?"
"Because I'm trying to prove a point."
"You're being stupid."
"I'm only trying to prove that this," he points his finger back and forth between the two of them. "Is only going to work if we work together."
"We've been working together fine for four years!"
"Sure, we have. During college. Living separately in houses with ten other people in it. It's just me and you, now. We have more responsibilities. We have to share those responsibilities."
"Okay. Okay. I get it. I'm sorry," her response is rushed, quick.
"Do you, Beca?"
The look in her eyes is enough to make him want to just tell her he's joking, that everything's fine, that the 'no sex' rule is off the table, but he can't bring himself to do it. He sees the sadness and hurt her in eyes from the tone he's just used with her, and he's certain she's close to tears.
She turns away from him, opening the frosted glass door and he reaches out for her. "Beca," he says. She shakes her head, steps out of the warm shower and closes the door softly behind her.
Jesse steps back into their bedroom after getting himself ready for work with every intent of talking to her about everything, but she'd put her pajamas back on and had already fallen back to sleep on the left side of their bed. He kneels beside her, seeing the few tear stains still stuck on her cheeks and he hates knowing he's the cause of it.
He leans in to leave a gentle kiss against her forehead and whispers, "I love you," against her skin.
She gives up trying to seduce him after his words in the shower.
She knows it's probably childish, but she ignores him whenever she can. She switches a few of her shifts around at the coffee shop so she's working at night, her Residual Heat internship keeping her preoccupied in the late afternoons. By the time she gets home, he's already asleep.
There's the odd few days she can't avoid him completely. Their already small apartment begins to feel even more claustrophobic. She makes sure to busy herself in her music room so he won't disturb her, because she knows he won't ever disrupt her time with her music.
Sometimes she'll hear his footsteps behind her, stopping in the doorway to watch her. She wants to turn around to face him, but she can't. She keeps herself facing her computer until she hears him start to walk away. She knows it's stupid and that she really should just talk to him.
She just doesn't know how.
He knows she's ignoring him.
She's busied herself into anything possible that can prevent her from spending anytime with him. Her morning shifts at the coffee shop down the block turn into night shifts: the only time he has during the week to spend with her.
He finds her in her music room in the odd chance they're actually together in the apartment. He'll stand at a distance behind her, watching her pretend to be busy working on mixes, wanting to just go in and talk with her. But he knows his girlfriend, and he know's he's better waiting for her to come to him, waiting until she's ready to talk.
He just hopes she'll be ready soon.
They don't talk for seven days when he decides he can't go on like this for one more second.
He calls up work and tells them he has an appointment and will be a few hours late into the office that morning. She's still sleeping, she always was the late sleeper between the two of them, when he tries to figure out what to say to her.
It's close to ten when he decides on making her breakfast, waffles with strawberries and powdered sugar; her favorite. He's finishing up the last of the waffles in the hot iron when he hears their door creak open. She stops dead in her tracks when she sees him standing in the kitchen.
"What are you doing here?"
"Making you breakfast," he points to the plate of waffles in front of him.
"Why aren't you at work?"
"Told them I'd be a few hours late."
"Why?"
"I was hoping to talk to you, since you've been avoiding me for the past week."
She nods, and walks slowly up to their kitchen island, sitting on one of the bar stools. He puts a warm waffle on her plate, putting some fresh strawberries he picked up from the market earlier that morning, sprinkling the top with powdered sugar and pushing the plate towards her.
"So," she starts quietly. She doesn't look up, just reaches for the maple syrup in front of her before drowning the waffle in the sticky substance. "I'm….I am sorry." When he doesn't respond she continues, "For not helping out with things. I know you're really busy, and this internship is really important for you right now. I should have known to just help. And I'm sorry. I promise I'll help out around the apartment more."
She looks up then and he's smiling at her from behind the island. He's fixed himself a plate that looks almost identical to hers and moves to sit on the bar stool beside her. He puts his hand on her upper thigh softly and says, "I'm sorry, too."
"For what?"
"For the whole 'no sex for a month' bet. It was dumb, and childish, and I'm sorry," he says. "Instead of doing something extreme, I should have just talked to you about it. But, I was frustrated and I thought it would push you to just help out that night, but, of course, that backfired completely."
She turns to face him and smiles, "Yeah, it was pretty fucking stupid. I have to agree with you there."
He laughs lightly along with her, reaching up to tuck the loose strands of her hair behind her ear with his free hand. "Are we good?"
"We're good," she leans into his hand that frames the side of her face. He leans forward to close the short distance between them and covers his mouth over hers. Her hands wind around his neck and his find her waist. She pulls back to say, "When do you have to be at your internship?"
He steals a few more kisses before responding with, "Oh, we've got time."
He stands up and she wraps her legs around his waist, their uneaten breakfast already becoming cold on the counter, and their bedroom door slamming shut behind them.
"I told you," she laughs against his bare chest.
His left hand continues to run up and down the skin of her back. He knows he's hours late to his internship at this point, but he can't bring himself to get out from under their covers. "Told me what?"
"I told you that you couldn't last a month without sex."