A/N: Written for the Merry Pitchmas Gift Exchange 2015!
It happens, on average, once per year.
Atlanta is shut down by an ice storm.
This year's, however, has the impeccable timing of occurring the night before Beca and Chloe are scheduled to fly to their respective hometowns to spend Christmas with their families.
Beca's internship prevented her from flying home any earlier, and Chloe didn't want Beca to be the only Bella left in the house in case something like this happened. Literally, her excuse had been, "I don't want something to happen and you spend Christmas all alone in this big house!"
So when Beca wakes up on December 24 to her phone's alarm set to 5:30 am so she can catch her 9:05 am flight, she sees a series of texts from the airline that begins with notifications of delay and ends with a full cancellation. "Shit," she says, crawling out of bed. It's freezing in her room, which is perpetually warm due to it being the highest point in the house, and she crosses the room to peer out a window. She can't see a thing, however, as the window is completely covered in a sheet of ice. She lets the curtain fall back into place and reaches for the light switch.
Nothing.
She looks toward her bed and the digital clock that should be glowing red, but it's blank. She tries the light in her closet just to be sure, and it's just as ineffective as the other. She stands in her closet thumbing at her phone screen - of course the WiFi won't work - to check the local news to see what's happening. ICE STORM CRIPPLES CITY. MILLIONS POWERLESS. ATLANTA AIRPORT CLOSED. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS STRANDED FOR THE HOLIDAYS.
"Wonderful." She sends a text to her dad, telling him she's going to miss Christmas, and will let him know when she can catch a flight.
For a moment she considers falling back into bed and curling up, but her room is an icebox and it has to be even colder on the lower levels where Chloe is sleeping, and she wonders how long the power and, subsequently, the heat, has been out. She grabs a hoodie off the floor and pads down the stairs, using the flashlight on her iPhone to light the way.
She knows Chloe won't be awake yet. Her flight is - was - scheduled for a few hours after Beca's. She hesitates in the doorway to Chloe's room, door open as always. Her Open Door Policy was quite literal in all aspects of her life. Beca angles her phone just-so to illuminate the room enough to survey the area for obstacles before turning off the light and tiptoeing across the floor.
She hesitates next to Chloe's bed. She's curled up, blankets to her nose, and she hates to disturb her, but it's freezing and she no longer has a flight to catch, and she gets Chloe to herself for at least one more day. Almost giddy, not that she'd admit it to anyone but herself and maybe Chloe, she crawls up from the foot of the bed into the narrow space along the wall. She wiggles beneath the covers as carefully as she can to not disturb her Sleeping Beauty too much, and thanks her lucky stars Chloe decided to stay with her through today.
As she settles next to the redhead, she stops to wonder why they were sleeping separately tonight to begin with. They were alone and about to part ways for two weeks. They said their goodbyes pretty thoroughly in the evening but, apparently by force of habit of keeping their blooming relationship on the down low, they went to their respective rooms to sleep.
Chloe stirs a bit as Beca settles and with a streak of mischief she presses her ice cube feet against Chloe's.
Chloe's reaction is instant as she jolts awake in a panic, sending Beca into a fit of laughter.
"Beca!" she exclaims after a moment of disorientation. "What are you doing here?"
Beca's still laughing and she curls herself against Chloe's frame. "Ice storm. City's shut down. Airport closed."
"What?" Chloe reaches for her bedside lamp to click it on unsuccessfully.
"Power's out, too." She runs her cold toes over Chloe's feet again and then wedges them between Chloe's. "And the heat."
"Your flight's cancelled?"
"Yours too. Literally everyone's."
Chloe flops back down in bed, this time on her back, and lets out a whine. "I'm going to miss Christmas."
Beca chuckles and snuggles up next to her on her side, working one arm under her neck and wrapping the other around her waist. "Christmas is still going to happen. Doesn't matter where you are."
"I know," Chloe huffs and settles her arms over the one across her stomach. "I don't want to be alone for Christmas. It's my favorite day."
"Hey!" Beca says, squeezing Chloe. "What am I? Chopped liver?"
"You're stuck here, too?!"
Beca smiles at Chloe's sleep-induced disorientation. "Chlo, that was literally the first thing I said. My flight is cancelled and the airport is shut down."
Chloe squeals at that and flips onto her right side to face Beca, kissing her soundly. "We get to spend Christmas together?"
"Seems that way. To be honest, I'd rather stay home with you anyway."
Chloe vibrates with happiness again, more or less rolling on top of Beca. "That means we have the house to ourselves."
"That we do." Beca likes the sound of that, of the way Chloe's words drift over her neck where her face is nestled. It's a little playful; a little naughty. But other things are more pressing. "It's like six in the morning. Can we go back to sleep?"
"Do we need to do something about the power? Or heat?"
"The heat is out because of the power."
"Oh. Right."
"How do you not know how the utilities work?"
"You hush. You know Flo is in charge of the bills."
Beca laughs. "And unless you're going to go out there and fix the downed power lines, no, we don't need to do anything."
"What about the food in the fridge? And freezer?"
"Oh my God. It'll be fine. And it's freezing outside so we can always put everything on the porch to keep it cold."
"I'm from Florida. I don't know these things." Chloe squeezes her and resettles on the opposite side of the bed than she was sleeping on previously, forcing Beca to slide over and make room. "What about us? It's so cold in here."
Beca runs her hand down Chloe's back to grab her rear playfully. "Guess we'll have to find other ways to stay warm."
Chloe giggles and kisses her neck, making her squirm. "Before or after we go back to sleep?"
It makes Beca shiver, but she's yawning immediately. "After."
When she wakes up the second time, the room is brighter, but Beca knows it's gray outside. The temperature inside seems to have dropped several more degrees and she pulls Chloe tighter against her for warmth. She doesn't know what time it is and she doesn't remember where she put her phone, but Chloe is still asleep so she watches her, appreciating the stillness.
Chloe is on all the time. Seemingly 24/7/365. To see her calm, peaceful, quiet is a rarity. It gives Beca time to really think. To think about what's transpired in the last few weeks between them. In one night they went from cuddling on Chloe's bed watching reruns of "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" to Beca cradling Chloe between her legs as they made out - like, sloppy, loud making out.
It had been the easiest transition in the world. She didn't question it that night when Chloe lifted her head from where it was resting against her shoulder and pressed her lips to Beca's neck. She didn't ask what was happening when they broke apart to shift so Beca could lie down and pull Chloe on top of her. She didn't ask what it meant when Chloe's hand breezed under her shirt to graze her breast. She didn't wonder what it meant when, three nights later, she was unbuttoning Chloe's jeans.
The line between friends and lovers was as indistinct as when they shifted from strangers to friends. It was just a thing that happened. For the first time in their university timeline, they were both single, and it felt like the most natural evolution in their already close relationship. And for the first time in Beca's life, she wasn't overthinking everything.
It was nice.
So she watches Chloe sleep, thinking about it and how nice and easy it is. It was nice with Jesse, but it was never easy. She never felt like her natural self was acceptable to him, always trying to convince her to be a different version of who she was. Chloe doesn't do that, not beyond begging her to watch movies because she loves them so much and wants to share that with Beca, or telling her that less is more when it came to eyeliner because she's so pretty that she really doesn't need all that stuff.
She watches her until she decides she's maybe being a little creepy and her stomach growls in demand of sustenance and she wakes her by shifting the hand that rests against Chloe's abdomen into motion, brushing back and forth until she stirs with a sigh and a stretch and a smile.
"Hi," Chloe says, voice tight as she stretches.
Beca smiles back at her. "Hey."
Chloe glances around the room. "Power still out?"
Beca can't answer definitively because she hasn't left the bed since arriving, but it's still cold and she hasn't heard the heater kick on, so she answers, "Yeah."
Chloe whines a little and rolls over to bury her face in Beca's chest and while Chloe's made that same move dozens of times over the years, Beca's body reacts to it differently now and Chloe doesn't miss the way her breath catches. She giggles and nips at Beca through her shirt and Beca nudges her away gently.
"I mean absolutely no disrespect, but I need to eat or I'll never make it."
She feels fingers starting to tickle her stomach. "Aw, Beca's tum-tum…"
"Don't," she cuts Chloe off with a finger to her nose. "No baby talk."
She feels her laugh and then Chloe is extracting herself from their ridiculous embrace to sit up and stretch again, and Beca can't help but stare at the band of pale skin around her waist as the shirt rides up. She wants to kiss it, but it will have to wait. She climbs out of bed, wincing as her bare feet hit the cold hardwood floor and steals a pair of socks from Chloe's dresser. "Come on, let's go figure out breakfast."
The saving grace to the powerless situation is the gas range, and Beca spares a thought to wonder why they have electric heat if they have a gas stove, but it affords her the ability to heat up water in a tea kettle in lieu of the coffeemaker or microwave and make a pair of Denver omelets - 'omelet' is used loosely, as it is more akin to a pan of scrambled eggs with the makings of such mixed in - bell peppers, ham, and cheese.
She's already eating on one of the couches by the time Chloe shows up, wearing at least three layers plus a gray beanie as she wraps up her phone conversation, winking at Beca as she crosses the room to the kitchen. The Christmas tree the girls bought, installed, and decorated together is across from her, and Beca can't help but think it looks a little sad without its twinkling lights.
"Aw, babe, you made breakfast!"
"We can't make coffee, but there's hot water on the stove. I didn't know if you wanted tea or hot chocolate."
Chloe returns a few minutes later, plate in one hand and mug in the other to settle next to Beca. "I voted hot chocolate."
"Should have gone with my gut."
"It's so quiet," Chloe says after a minute or two of eating.
Beca hums an agreement. Without eight other chatterboxes, the drone of multiple televisions and/or sound systems, cell phones ringing and chiming, or passing traffic, it's eerily silent. She takes a particularly exaggerated slurp of her hot chocolate to break it, making Chloe giggle.
"What are we going to do?"
"Don't know," Beca says as she scrapes melted cheese off her plate with the side of her fork. "Cards? Board games?" She makes a face. "Books?"
"Do we have hot water?"
"We should."
She feels Chloe bounce and she glances to see her grinning and biting her lip.
"Okay. When we need to warm up."
Chloe pecks her cheek and returns to her breakfast and Beca uses the break in conversation to check on the outside world on her phone. It's still bad; most of the city is powerless and the freeways are gridlocked after multiple pile-ups on icy roads. There are a lot of headlines about Santa's prowess with ice and snow and not to worry - Christmas is still coming. She flips her phone back into Airplane Mode to save the battery and excuses herself to the kitchen to dump her plate in the dishwasher.
She detours into one of the other common rooms on the way back to survey the tower of board games that takes up one section of the wall of bookshelves and eases a few out of the stack, almost causing an avalanche in the process. She finds a couple different decks of cards in a drawer and tucks them in the pocket of her hoodie to make her way back to the main room with her stack of past times. She finds Chloe stretched out on the couch where Beca was sitting minutes earlier. She's staring at the ceiling, singing quietly, hands moving with the words, mimicking drumming as she rolls another "Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum" off her lips.
"I have some gifts to bring," Beca offers, trying to aim it to fall in line with the song's lyrics.
Chloe's eyes drop from the ceiling to look at Beca as she keeps singing with a smile, and Beca watches her scan the stack of boxes in her arms and nod approvingly.
Beca sets them down on the coffee table with a thump and swats Chloe's legs out of the way so she can sit, only to be trapped as they come back down across her lap like a seatbelt and Chloe hasn't missed a beat of her song yet. Beca leans forward, having to strain against Chloe's legs, but she runs her index finger down the line of boxes as she looks pointedly at Chloe, who watches her do it until she nods. Beca tugs that game out from its spot in the stack, not quite managing to avoid the rest of them tumbling backwards, two of them sliding all the way to the floor. She sighs at her failure and Chloe laughs through, "The ox and lamb kept time."
"Didn't mean to interrupt your concert," Beca says when Chloe's song finally concludes.
"You didn't," Chloe points out. And Beca realizes she's right - she kept right on with her song despite Beca's return. Chloe swings her legs off Beca and slides to sit on the floor, legs stretched out under the table as she flips the lid off the box to start rifling through metal pieces and plastic houses and multi-colored paper. "I get to be the little dog."
"As long as I can be the top hat."
"Oh my God, Chloe, you have to pay the rent before you roll again. Doubles doesn't give you a free pass!"
"Yes it does!"
"No, it doesn't! You can't just make up a rule when you land on my Pennsylvania Avenue with a hotel. Pay up!"
"I am not making up that rule, I've played it that way my entire life!"
"That is not a rule." Beca doesn't know what she was thinking even bringing Monopoly out of that room. They were the two most competitive members of the Bellas and it worked great when they were on the same team, but pitted against each other in a grudge match like this was bound for disaster. She is also winning with her trio of green properties proudly boasting their red plastic hotels which seem to draw Chloe's Scotty dog in like fresh meat every turn around the board to drain her bank account and pad Beca's.
Chloe finally backs down with a sigh and Beca wonders if she actually saw her lip quiver as she pulled out the bills required to total the $1400 in rent she owes Beca or if guilt at completely trouncing Chloe at something was making her see things. The payment leaves Chloe with a meager handful of paper money and the defeat in her eyes when she glances up at Beca is all too real and Beca's heart breaks instantly.
"I forfeit," she says, tossing her playing piece into the middle of the board.
"You can't forfeit; you're winning."
"Looks like I lost."
"I don't want to win because you quit."
Beca shakes her head and starts dropping her stacks of cash into the color-coordinated slots of the banking tray on Chloe's side of the table. "Too late. And this is supposed to be fun, and it's not fun anymore."
"I do not accept your forfeiture, and I declare you the winner, fair and square."
Beca rolls her eyes and just accepts her declaration, because once again, the two most competitive people will battle it out forever unless someone finally gives in. So she gives in and accepts her win, telling Chloe she knows she'll get her back with the next game, which Beca lets her choose. (Because that worked out so well the first round.)
"Sorryyyyyyy!" Chloe sings as she happily sends Beca's red pawn packing backwards with her own yellow.
"Just because it's called Sorry! doesn't mean you have to say it every time."
"Yes it does! It's in the rules."
"It is not."
Chloe's digging through unused pieces in the box and then flipping through the flimsy folded instructions, scanning with her finger and Beca knows she's already lost this particular argument when her finger stops and she flips the instructions around as if to point out that the instructions do indeed state that the player should exclaim the apology.
Beca grumbles and snatches the paper out of Chloe's fingers to frisbee toss it back into the box. "Whatever."
"Uh oh," Chloe says with a pouty voice. "Now who's sad because she's losing?"
"I didn't gloat about winning, so you can't either."
Chloe grins at her and reaches over to pat her cheek, which Beca recoils from in annoyance that she's losing. "Want me to forfeit?"
Beca bristled. "Never."
By lunchtime, the scoreboard reflects Beca as the victor of Monopoly and Boggle and Chloe the victor of Sorry! and The Game of Life. They break for restrooms and outside world check-ins. There's still no power in their area, but it's slowly being repaired downtown. The temperature is still below freezing and the roads are still impassable. Chloe returns from the break with a pair of blankets and a taller, thicker pair of socks over her original pair, these pulled up over the cuffs of her sweatpants.
Beca reaches for one of the dangling blankets as Chloe walks by but she keeps going. "Hey, bring those back," she protests.
"Come on!"
Chloe's already disappeared so Beca follows and catches up with her at the front door where she's stuffing her feet into a pair of Uggs.
"What's happening?" Beca asks, watching Chloe shift the blankets in her arms until she gets one wrapped around herself not unlike a burrito.
"We're going outside."
"Chlo, it's freezing. You're cold in here and it's sixty degrees. It's twenty-two outside."
Chloe grins and throws the other blanket at her. "Then we'll have to figure out how to get warmed up after!"
What Chloe wants to do outside, Beca discovers as she almost eats it her first step out of the house as she learns the entire patio is covered in a sheet of ice, is act like an Olympic figure skater. Chloe makes it down the four deadly steps with the aid of one of the columns, and then she's skating in her Uggs up and down the pathway.
Beca elects to stay by the door and watch, because Chloe's version of "skating" is more akin to Elaine's dance from 'Seinfeld' as she tries to slide and not lose her balance, and really there's no way that trying it herself would end without a broken bone or be more entertaining than what she was witnessing as Chloe squeals and whoops and swears once or twice in an attempt to spin in a circle.
"Such beauty!" Beca calls out as Chloe's arms flail out for balance, blanket turning into a cape for a moment before she pulls them back in. "Such grace!"
"I'll have you know," Chloe says, interrupting herself with another whoop, "that I'm the gold medal hopeful for the USA at the 2018 Winter Games."
"Okay, Tara Lipinski. Get in here before you break yourself."
Chloe's return is about as graceful as her departure, and Beca's attempt to help her almost sends them both crashing, but Beca gets her toe on the ice-free surface of the interior and pulls Chloe the last couple feet to the door, all giggles and "Save me!'s" from Chloe.
"Was that fun for you?" Beca asks as Chloe sheds the blanket, declaring it too cold because it 'sucked up all the winter.'
"Totes!" Her cheeks are rosy and she's sniffling like she needs a tissue but in her sweats and Uggs and zippered hoodie and sleeves of her under shirt pulled down over her fingers and her beanie, Beca finds herself staring. "Can we go warm up now?"
Beca rolls her eyes to cover the way she knows they would have screamed 'yes' in response and she lets Chloe take her hand to lead her up a level to the bathroom they share with Amy (the other seven girls share the other two). It's dim but not dark, light from the windows in the hallway illuminating the bathroom.
Chloe's half undressed by the time Beca turns around from pulling the shower curtain aside and turning on the faucet, but with all the layers, 'half-undressed' still has Chloe in her white thermal shirt but, apparently, nothing else. Beca gawks, checking herself when Chloe grins at her and tugs the bottom of her thermal lower with mock bashfulness.
"It'll be like old times," Chloe says, clearly giddy.
Beca, of course, knows exactly what Chloe's referring to. She's reminded of it daily, either by Chloe or her own subconscious, and she's not exactly complaining about that but it's actually a little scary to be faced with it in this new light.
Because they've never taken a shower together. Not with both parties consenting to it, anyway. And there's something disarming about that, about letting someone see how you wash your hair or shave or will they judge you if you don't let the conditioner sit long enough? Bathing is such a routine yet private thing and Beca's never shared that with anyone, not since she was old enough to handle it herself. But Chloe's smiling at her with a bitten lower lip and twisting herself back and forth with impatient excitement and that's enough to spur Beca's arms into motion to shed her hoodie, taking the T-shirt with it. And in an instant she's reminded that she hadn't bothered with a bra that morning, since Chloe was the only other person in the house and she was wearing layers, because the little gasp that escapes Chloe's lips makes her take a quick inventory of her person and her arms cross her chest automatically.
"Bec," Chloe says with a teasing tone to her voice. "I've already seen them."
Of course she has. More than once in recent weeks, in fact. But it's not without a little awkward effort that she unfolds her arms to busy herself with pushing her track pants down and kick them aside. Chloe decides that's the time to pull her own shirt over her head, and Beca's quick to discover a bra wasn't one of Chloe's seventeen layers either and she swallows the lump in her throat, because honestly she's not going to get over it any time soon that she has this with Chloe now.
Chloe bounces once and then she's turning for the shower, and despite ninety-nine percent of Beca's brain being consumed with, well, consuming Chloe's form, the one percent speaks up and offers a moment of rational thought. "We can't use the blow dryer and it's cold in here. Don't get your hair wet."
She watches Chloe pause and glance over her shoulder and say something about how Beca can't expect her to follow the rules in the shower with her, and it doesn't make sense to Beca but she doesn't care, and she's stepping out of her underwear and into the shower which is surprisingly darker than the rest of the bathroom once she draws the curtain behind her. But not before tying up her own hair with the band she keeps around her wrist.
Chloe's doing the same, she realizes once she's behind the curtain, and she takes pride in Chloe following her advice, and in that she gets to watch Chloe do it, impeccable body shamelessly on display as she finishes securing her hair into a messy bun.
The way Chloe carried on about doing this, Beca had a very different picture in her mind than reality. She expected there to be, like, wall-pinning and neck biting and the wasting of a ridiculous amount of water.
Well, maybe there was a little wall-pinning and neck biting, she thought with a smile before she pulled at the soft skin just below Chloe's earlobe with her lips, but there was nothing frantic like she imagined there would be. Instead it's...nice. It's slow and warm and sometimes they're kissing and sometimes they're passing a requested loofah or face wash back and forth. And then Chloe tells her to turn around and Chloe steals her loofah and is rubbing gentle circles over her shoulders and back and Beca wonders if they can make this part of their routine from now on because oh my GOD it feels amazing.
"Nice?" Chloe asks, apparently responding to whatever noise slipped out of Beca.
"Mhmm," she says, letting her head loll forward as a hand starts following the path of the puff, moving easily through the slippery lather to poke and prod at the muscles of her back and neck, and she shivers. She also realizes she might actually be drooling from the intense level of relaxation she's slipping into and she licks her lips and lifts her head. "Can we just stay in here?" she says, and she knows it's kind of mumbled.
She hears Chloe giggle behind her and a moment later, the loofah sweeps down her back and around to her stomach and she feels Chloe pressed flush against her, arms around her waist. Beca doesn't know whether to sigh or gasp and she goes with a sigh, leaning back a little into the embrace.
And she's not overthinking it - she's not - but she has a moment of wondering what this is, and what it means that it's so easy for her to sink into someone the way she sinks, figuratively and otherwise, into Chloe.
Her thoughts are interrupted by Chloe using her hold on Beca to turn her around, and then they're kissing again, slowly and peacefully, from soft touches of lips to brief moments of tongues battling for dominance, and Chloe's hands wander a little, over the back she's washed and along the curve at the base of Beca's spine to trail up along her ribs where she briefly but quite purposefully covers Beca's breasts, just holding them as though she's never touched such a thing before (though Chloe's touched them quite a bit recently). It makes Beca's breathing catch and that makes Chloe smile against her lips and Beca finds the wherewithal to follow suit and reach down to cup Chloe's backside and pull her a little closer. It earns her a happy little sigh, and then with a finalizing kiss, Chloe's easing out of their embrace to reach for the shower curtain.
"We're wasting water," she says to Beca's questioning look.
Beca was definitely not ready to be finished but Chloe is already gone. "I thought you wanted to get warmed up?" she calls as she takes a quick rinse and shuts off the water.
"I did. And I am." Chloe's smiling at her via the mirror when Beca emerges. It's extra steamy in the bathroom, assisted by the cool temperature in the house but she can see Chloe easily, wearing her pastel green bathrobe as she moisturizes her face.
"So you're a tease," Beca states, trying to tamp down the arousal Chloe instigated.
"You say that like it's new information."
"I can't say I've ever been the recipient of that particular trait."
Chloe winks. "Lucky you. Don't worry, you can get at this later. First I must challenge you to a game of Uno."
It's later, and Beca still hasn't 'got at that,' and not for lack of trying. And while Chloe has indulged Beca's grabby hands to get her into her lap for a few minutes of kissing now and then, by and large Chloe is keeping herself almost completely out of reach. Her feet are in Beca's lap and Beca's are in hers, and Beca laughs to herself because they are, quite literally scissoring as they sit facing one another on the couch in their sweats and hoodies and socks and Beca's added a scarf to her ensemble and Chloe's beanie returned post-shower. The blankets from earlier cover their legs and serve as a table.
Chloe's taken the time to round up every candle she can find, and there are plenty in a house of ten college girls, and they're lit for both heat and light in a relatively small area that encircles the couch and table which has come to be their base camp.
"BOOM, bitch! Green!" Beca says as she throws down a Draw Four Wild Card. She might be sexually frustrated, but she's also the Mitchell Family Uno Champion three years running (she might have failed to mention that fact to Chloe when the challenge was extended) so for now, she's content to make Chloe pick up card after card. She wins easily and despite four more rematches by a very determined Chloe Beale, Beca remains Uno Champion winning four games to one.
"Now what?" Chloe asks as she stuffs the cards back into their box. "I'm hungry."
Beca glances at the time on her iPhone, grimacing that the battery was down to thirty-two percent, and is surprised to see that it's well past 7:00 pm. It was plenty dark, but she hadn't noticed until now. "You're on dinner duty. I made breakfast."
"Think anyone is delivering? I want Chinese."
"It's Christmas Eve."
"Yeah. Chinese. Duh," Chloe says as though Beca missed the obvious point. "I have it every year on Christmas Eve."
"And there's an ice storm. If you want to waste your phone battery calling places that probably aren't even open and even more probably aren't delivering, be my guest. And then make me dinner."
"I have two of those battery back-up chargers upstairs," Chloe says with a poking out of her tongue and then she's calling.
To Beca's annoyance for being wrong, Chloe manages to find a restaurant in their neighborhood that is both open and crazy enough to deliver. It takes longer than usual to arrive and they spend the hour and a half horizontal and in Chloe's bed so Beca can finally 'get at that.'
And it's amazing.
It's always amazing with Chloe. She can still count on her two hands the number of times they've done this and it's still new and exciting and a little scary because there's still one thing Beca hasn't done for Chloe and every time the clothes come off she wonders if she'll have the courage to do it. If Chloe will ask her to. If that will be enough encouragement for Beca to dare kiss any lower than Chloe's stomach.
Chloe does ask; she asks if Beca wants to try it, that she wants to know how Beca's kisses feel elsewhere, after she's done it for Beca, and it's partly arousal and partly competition, because even though Chloe is being sweet and saying it's okay if she isn't ready, she wants to be as good at it as Chloe is because oh my GOD is she amazing at it.
So she works up the nerve and tries it, and it's kind of awkward but feels kind of natural and it's amazing, too, and that trumps the scary and she's pretty sure she needs to practice this every day. Maybe more than once per day.
She's not ready to be done with her first practice when the doorbell rings and Chloe has to pull herself away with a breathy laugh so she can slip her sweatpants back on and run downstairs before the delivery man thinks he has the wrong house.
"Bec, hurry up, it'll get cold fast!" she hears Chloe call up to her where she's still sitting, mostly dressed, on the bed. She realizes she's just sitting there, smiling, her fingers touching her lips and Chloe's voice startles her into moving.
They 'scissor' on the couch again with their chicken chow mein and sweet and sour pork within a narrower circle of candles. The temperature is dropping again and when Beca last checked the thermostat, it was fifty-six degrees in the house. Southern houses were definitely not insulated for this type of weather. They've both added gloves to their ensembles and Beca's finally pulled on a hat after Chloe harassed her about it for a solid three minutes.
"So," Chloe says after slurping a noodle through pursed lips, "I want to know about the Mitchell Family Christmas." She smiles and pokes Beca's side with a double-socked toe. "What festivities are you missing this weekend?"
Beca smiles, poking around in her carton of fried rice. "I'm missing out on the tension between my grandma and Sheila. She's never really accepted her as her new daughter-in-law."
"No?"
"She thinks Sheila's a home wrecker. And I know I joke about, too, that but she really isn't. So they're passive aggressive with each other and my dad tries to play both sides and it's exhausting."
"What about the other stuff though? The nice stuff."
Beca's quiet for a moment, remembering the Christmases before the divorce and constant tension. "My best friend would always come sleep over on Christmas Eve. Her mom was a cop and a single parent and she always worked holidays and double shifts for the extra cash. We'd stay up late, as late as Mom would let us, until she'd send us to bed and we'd lay there in my bed listening for reindeer on the roof. We always fell asleep before we heard them though."
Chloe giggles at that.
"But Santa always came. We'd wake up in the morning and run downstairs and presents for both of us would be there. I didn't know until I was older that it was the only Christmas she had, the one with us, because her mom couldn't afford to do anything for it."
She thinks Chloe might cry, the look in her eyes almost breaking Beca's own heart.
"We lost touch in high school. I hope she's doing okay." She scratches her nose and wonders if she should try to look her up on Facebook. "Anyway."
Beca deflects further questions back to Chloe. She doesn't like talking about herself but loves listening to Chloe so it's a win-win.
Over the course of the hour they finish eating and Chloe works her way across the couch until she's tucked between the back of it and Beca, stretched out on her side, using Beca much like a body pillow. "Should we just sleep down here?" Chloe asks through a yawn.
Beca tilts her chin down so she can press her lips to Chloe's forehead. The action gets Chloe's attention and she sits up a little, capturing Beca's lips for a moment. "Yeah, let's sleep down here."
"'Kay. Merry Christmas, Beca."
"Merry Christmas, Chloe."