Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or properties involved in this story. Everything belongs to its respective owners. Pitch Perfect is owned by Universal Studios, probably for as long as I may live, and while we're on that subject matter, SpongeBob SquarePants and the episode 'Chocolate With Nuts', which this story is heavily based on, are both owned by Nickelodeon and Viacom. Now that all that's out of the way, enjoy!
Chocolate Bars With or Without Nuts
By: The Flying Hawaiian 001
Jim, one of the local mailmen, whistled as he walked alongside the sidewalk on the massive University's campus. It was a nice day to stretch his legs, and he always found that the best days were when there wasn't much mail to deliver.
Unfortunately for Jim, there was a good deal of mail to deliver. Even more unfortunately, it was all directed towards one of Jim's least favorite places on Barden Campus: Casa Bella, the home of the Barden Bellas.
It wasn't that Jim had anything against the girls themselves. The problem was that, whenever he delivered mail to their residence, they always managed to find ways to make him extremely uncomfortable. And with each visit, they always managed to find new ways to top themselves even more so than they had before.
"If I had a dollar for every time these girls did something that freaked me out even slightly, I'd probably not be working here." The twenty-five year old man thought to himself, shaking his head as he did so.
As the house came into full view, he sighed, knowing full well that something was going to happen. With the Bellas, something always did happen. He couldn't possibly imagine how they all lived with each other. The thought came to his mind often, but he could never wrap his mind around it.
"Well, here goes nothing." Jim said to himself out loud, allowing his shoulders to slump as he walked with a heavy bag of mail, and up the front steps of the house. There didn't seem to be anyone home, at least no one that he could see.
He smirked, chuckling at the possibility that nobody was home for once. "For once, I've lucked out." Jim thought out loud, as he pulled the mail out of his brown bag.
Sadly, Jim's few moments of solitude on the job were ruined by one of the Bellas, Lily, standing directly behind him, and saying, in as small a voice as possible, "Hi, mailman."
Jim screamed, and threw the mail to the ground, not even bothering to properly do his job, or even spare a glance at the girl who startled him. He ran, and didn't look back. Unbeknownst to him, Lily waved goodbye, muttering a small 'bye' under her breath before picking up the mail.
Lily opened the door, walking into the living room where all her friends and, as she dared to call them, teammates, sat in repose. Some of them were distracted, especially their co-captains, Beca Mitchell and Chloe Beale, who were in separate rooms working on different things, and some of them were just goofing off, like Amy, who was attempting to build a slingshot using a spoon, a scrunchie, and a wooden ball. "That can only end so well." Lily thought to herself.
The naturally silent girl stood in the doorway leading to the hallway, before mouthing, "Mail's here." She managed to catch the attention of Stacie Conrad, who looked up from her phone to notice Lily holding the heavy stack of mail in her two hands. "Attention, residents of Casa Bella! The mail's here, in case you weren't already aware!"
As the girls set down whatever they held in their hands or stopped what they were doing, and made their way over to Lily, in a manner as disorganized as humanly possible, and began grabbing the variety of mail from off her hands.
"Lemme guess: you scared poor Jim away again, didn't you, Lil?" Amy somewhat snidely asked, a massive smirk on her face. "Don't be a smartass, Amy. It just looks bad on you." Cynthia-Rose 'CR' Jones remarked, clicking her tongue at the Tasmanian.
Ashley Williams shook her head at the two, rolling her eyes as she took a look through the small pile of mail in her hands. "Please, don't butt heads again. Remember what happened last time?" She calmly requested, a shudder running down her spine recalling the last time Amy and CR got into a rather intense verbal fight, which ended with Amy calling CR a few Australian slang words, and CR retaliating by chasing Amy with a paintball gun until one in the morning. Needless to say, that wasn't a fun night for anyone on the Barden Campus.
Amy snorted, but attempted to cover her laughter by placing her right hand over her mouth. "What's so funny?" Ashley asked, genuinely confused as to why Amy was laughing. Jessica Smith rolled her eyes, taking them off of the small pile of mail she had placed on the coffee table.
"Seriously, Amy? Grow up. Anyhow, let's see what we got today." The beanie-wearing blonde said, picking up the pile.
Stacie sat next to her, and grabbed a few of the items Lily had granted them with. "Let's see: fan mail, fan mail, Amy's bill from that Chinese restaurant she still owes money to, a letter saying we should all die, a letter saying we'll all burn in hell, a death threat, and-hey, a magazine! Neat!" She cheerfully chirped, putting the other items that were in her arms back onto the table, and opening the magazine.
The others surrounded her as she flipped through the pages. It was an entire magazine dedicated to showcasing the lives of those the girls considered 'upper class', or, as Amy called them, "snobs with sticks up their butts".
"Wow…" CR mused in admiration. "Look at this glossy depiction of a higher living style." Jessica somewhat sarcastically commented. "Whatever, Smith. Look! This guy has a swimming pool inside of a swimming pool!" Stacie pointed out a young, well-dressed man sitting inside a kiddie pool conveniently placed in a bigger pool, with a massive mansion placed in the background.
Amy's eyes widened when she saw something that was infinitely, extremely, so fascinatingly more impressive than the previous thing that was pointed out. "Look! This guy's got shoes!" She pointed out the picture in question, earning the first of many wide eyed-stares from the other Bellas.
Ignoring Amy's plain obvious comment, the girls continued looking through the magazine, admiring the photography found in the magazine, but failed to notice Beca walking into the room, Chloe closely following next to her. Neither one of them were paying much attention to things going on in the living room, but they were about to.
"And that's why 'Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants' is pure pornography." Beca finished her convoluted explanation on the subject of the film in question, which she begrudgingly watched the previous night with Jesse Swanson, her ex-boyfriend, to her redhead co-captain, who nodded intently.
As they passed by the table, they almost missed the fact what the girls were doing. Had Ashley not sneezed, Beca wouldn't have quickly turned to see what was going on, nor would she have realized that they had their hands on a familiar looking magazine.
"Uh, what are you guys doing?" She asked in a monotonous tone of voice. "Reading a magazine." Stacie nonchalantly stated. Beca nodded her head. "Uh huh. Well, would it surprise you to know that that's my magazine?"
And almost as if it were at the drop of a dime, the girls reading the magazine froze, realizing their mistake. Beca rolled her eyes, and grabbed the well-stapled 32 pages from Stacie's hand.
"Give me that! You guys know better than to take my mail! You're lucky I don't report you all to the campus police." Beca half-seriously and half-jokingly reprimanded, as she struggled not to crack a smile.
"You read magazines about snobs with sticks up their butts?" Amy questioned, earning groans from most of the people in the room. "Amy, for the last time: not all rich people are snobs with sticks up their butts. Some rich people are actually nice folks." Chloe said, the annoyance evident in her voice.
Beca, having had enough of the nonsense going on in front of her, answered, "Yeah, I read these kinds of magazines. They're sorta interesting. I like what I like. What's it to you?"
Amy shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing. It's just that, well, I've been thinking. How exactly do these people get stinking rich in the first place?" She asked, unwittingly sparking interest and chatter amongst the Bellas, sans Beca and Chloe.
"They're entrepreneurs. They sell things that people want to buy. Most likely, the case for them was that they built a foundation from the ground up, and got rich because of it. Maybe they're in sales, or they're actors, who got noticed for being talented." Beca irritatedly explained.
Jessica raised her hand, earning another eye roll from Beca. "Yes, Jessica?" She groaned. "Did you only mention actors because of your recent fixation on Anna Kendrick?" The blonde asked, in a sickly innocent voice.
"No! I mentioned them because actors are entrepreneurs, too! They work their asses off to crack into the industry they want to be in! Oh, by the way, watching 'Up In the Air' and 'Scott Pilgrim' a lot does not mean I have a fixation on Anna Kendrick. Now quit pawing into my mail." Beca growled, making an attempt to hide her embarrassment by walking away.
Chloe shook her head as the brunette walked away, before taking a moment to look at her other friends. "Don't feel bad, guys. She's mostly frustrated because she just gave a long explanation about why she feels a movie she doesn't like is, in her own words, 'pure pornography'." She kindly apologized before following after Beca.
Stacie shrugged her shoulders, before her eyes lit up. "You know what? I just had an idea!" She announced, getting the others' attention. "Does it involve food?" Amy asked.
"Possibly." Stacie replied, to which Amy took a seat next to her on the couch. "I'm in."
Stacie got up close and personal to her friend, and looked her directly in the eye. "Quick, Amy. Without thinking, if you could have anything in the world, right now, what would it be?"
Amy began profusely sweating, almost completely out of nowhere, and seemed to be struggling to find the right words. "Um… uh… more time for thinking?" She stuttered, feeling lucky to have formed a coherent sentence at all.
Stacie turned away from the others, and placed her finger and thumb on her chin, rubbing away as she tried to come up with an idea. "No! Something real! An item, y'know? Something you could pay for…"
And then, as Lily turned on a lightbulb that stood behind Amy's head as she sat, and her stomach grumbled, an item popped into her head. "A chocolate bar?!" She blurted out, earning her an excited look from Stacie. "Holy shit, Amy. You're a genius! We can be travelling chocolate bar saleswomen! Who's in?"
"I'm in." CR stated. "I'm game." Ashley announced, while Lily said something in a voice so small that nobody could understand what she was saying. Jessica shrugged. "Sounds fun. Could be a good way to kill time." They all turned their heads to face Amy, who smirked at the lot of them.
"The chocolate bar thing was my idea, so I'm in by default."
CR tapped her feet as she, Stacie, Jessica, and Amy waited outside the local store for Lily and Ashley to walk out with the boxes of chocolate they planned on selling. She was growing impatient, and for good reason. They had been waiting for over twenty minutes.
"Where the Hell are they? It shouldn't take that long to get six boxes of chocolate." She complained. "Maybe we should've sent another person inside." Stacie admitted, growing frustrated as well.
"What I'm wondering is how are we gonna be able to pay for six boxes of chocolate bars? Wouldn't that cost a lot of money?" Jessica questioned, to which Amy intentionally bumped into her shoulder, stepping forward to block her view of the door.
"You want an answer to your question? Here's your answer, and I can sum it up in two words: Beca's. Wallet."
The other girls' eyes widened at the answer they received. Jessica especially looked horrified, knowing full-well just how angry Beca could get when provoked. "Are you insane?! If Beca finds out you took money from her wallet, she's going to kill us all!" She screeched.
"Relax, flat-butt. Beca won't find out. And even if she does, we'll pay her back with whatever money we make!" Amy weakly attempted to reason, but Jessica wasn't going to have it. "First of all, don't call me 'flat-butt'. Second of all, you still stole from her! That's still wrong!"
Amy shrugged in response, clearly indicating that she didn't care any. And as she did, Ashley and Lily finally walked out of the store, grunting as they each carried three boxes containing chocolate bars. From the way that they were struggling to hold them in their arms, and the fact that their expressions clearly showed pain, the boxes had to have been extremely heavy.
"We… are never… doing this… again." Ashley groaned, as Lily nodded her head in agreement. "Speak for yourself, Williams. Because after today, we can consider this what we officially wanna use to keep us afloat after we graduate!" Stacie exclaimed, as she and the others who didn't currently have boxes in their hands grabbed two each.
After they all had placed their boxes inside paper bags, the girls rallied in a circle outside of the store. "Obviously, we can't all go together to sell these things, so I think we should split up." CR proposed, as Stacie nodded in agreement.
"That sounds like the right way to go. And if we're gonna do it that way, we should go in pairs of two. I'll go with CR. Amy, you'll go with Ashley. Jessica, you go with Lily." Stacie commanded.
When Amy wasn't looking, Ashley frowned. "Of all the people here, why do I get stuck with Amy?" She grimly thought to herself. "Now that that's all settled, let's make a living!" Amy yelled, loudly and clearly, into her ear, disrupting her thinking.
Stacie and CR walked along the corridors of Baker Hall. They had all agreed on where they'd be selling door-to-door before splitting up. They had the campus, Jessica and Lily had the fraternity houses, and Amy and Ashley got the neighborhood.
As the two came up on the first door they saw, CR knocked, and not three seconds later, a young man who looked like a freshman opened. "Hello?" He answered. "Hi! We're selling chocolate bars! Do you want to buy one?" Stacie politely asked.
The freshman nodded his head. "Sure, I'd love one!" He answered, to which she smiled. "Great! Just give us a dollar, and we'll give you one!" She cheerfully responded, but for some reason, the boy's expression turned glum.
"Oh… I don't have any money. I thought they were free." He admitted. Almost on cue, CR slammed the door in his face, turning to Stacie. "Free chocolate bars? Hell, no. Let's try next door."
Jessica and Lily walked together along the sidewalk, but neither of them were looking at the other. They had their eyes, and their minds, on other things. Jessica looked straight ahead, while Lily looked all around her, observing the area, taking the time to notice the sky and the trees.
"Still better than getting stuck with Amy. Poor Ash, though. I bet Amy's giving her a hard time. Then again, Amy gives everyone a hard time, doesn't she? I mean, I know she's trying to be funny, but she can be so obnoxious some days." The blonde thought to herself. She could only imagine what insults Amy managed to throw at her friend.
As she and Lily crossed the street to the next block, they noticed the Treble house just ahead of them. "Look! There's our first customer spot, right there!" Jessica pointed out, a confident smile taking form on her face as she and Lily made their way up the steps.
The second they got up to the door, Lily knocked on it. Five seconds later, and the door was answered by Donald. "Good afternoon, sir! Could we interest you in some chocolate?" Jessica kindly asked.
For some reason, Donald's right eye twitched. "Chocolate? Did you say chocolate?" He asked, a slight growl in his voice. Lily nodded her head, growing increasingly worried. "Yep! With or without nuts!" Jessica cheerfully exclaimed, oblivious to the mad look in their customer's eyes.
"Chocolate… CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE!" Donald was practically screaming by then. Seeing that her fellow saleswoman had finally become aware of just what the Hell they were getting into, Lily quickly dragged Jessica away from Donald, before looking her right in the eye, and whispering one word: 'RUN.'
So, they ran. Still carrying the chocolate boxes in their bags, and the bags in their arms, the girls ran as fast as they could, in spite of the growling madman following them and screaming into the air, "CHOCOLATE!"
Walking up the steps of the first house outside of Barden they saw, Ashley and Amy both sighed with relief. "Wow. That was a pretty long walk, right?" Amy said through heavy panting. "Amy, we barely walked ten minutes." Ashley retorted, clearly annoyed.
"Well, it felt a lot longer than it was!" Amy tried to explain herself. "I agree. But that's because you were yammering on and on the entire time about how Val Kilmer is still hot even though he's gained weight, and how I'm, in your own words, flatter than a pancake."
Not wanting to pick a fight with the larger girl, Ashley rolled her eyes, and stood up straight. "Whatever. Let's just try and actually sell chocolate this time. The others have had no luck. Let's be the ones to change that." She commanded. Her legs were locked, and her eyes displayed confidence, readiness, something she rarely ever showed. And it made herself proud.
"Um… pardon me Captain America, but… what are you doing? Because you look like an idiot." Amy bluntly stated, earning another eye-roll from Ashley, who proceeded to knock on the door.
Their potential customer opened it. He was a younger man, somewhere in his thirties. He had on a brown fedora, a purple checkered shirt, and a pair of neatly pressed and folded brown pants.
"Did we just stumble on a detective?" Amy internally asked herself.
"Good afternoon, sir! We're selling chocolate bars." Ashley quickly asked, not wanting Amy to say anything. "Chocolate bars, eh?" The man chuckled, pressing his hand to his door.
"Yes, sir! We're entrepreneurs!" Amy practically yelled, which both annoyed and started Ashley. "Heh. More like a couple of wannabe saleswomen. That's no way to carry your merchandise!" The man pointed towards the boxes of chocolate bars, which had been lazily placed in by Amy.
"Well, in my humble opinion, no self-respecting salesman or saleswoman would be caught dead without one of these!" He over-dramatically exclaimed, like one of these people in car commercials you see nowadays, and pulled out a small leather bag. Ashley wasn't very impressed. Amy, on the other hand? She stared in amazement.
"WOW! Wait, what is it?" She asked, to which the man, in a slightly condescending tone of voice, answered: "It's a candy bar bag, my dear! It's specially made to cradle each candy bar in velvet-lined comfort."
Amy, with a dumbfounded look on her face, reached out to touch it, but the man quickly pulled away. "But, who am I kidding? You ladies don't need these, anyway."
Before Amy could say anything, Ashley covered her lips, and spoke for herself. "Thank you for your time, sir. I suppose, since we're a couple of mediocre saleswomen, you wouldn't be interested in buying a chocolate bar?"
And the only answer the girls got was the door being slammed in their faces.
Stacie and CR walked down along the second floor of Baker Hall. "Okay, CR. That first floor was a fluke, but we'll get some customers here! I know we will! Let's try this room!"
The dark-haired sophomore knocked on the door. It was then answered by a girl that CR had instantly recognized. "Hey, I know you! You used to be our captain's roommate!"
The girl, Kimmy Jin, rose her eyes. "The white girl from first year? You're friends with her?" She asked, visibly growing cautious. Stacie nodded her head. "Mmm hmm! But we're not here with her! We're selling chocolate bars! Would you like one?" She politely asked, trying to stay on topic.
Kimmy Jin visibly cringed. "Damn, this girl is rude. And rude doesn't look good on any girl." CR thought. But still, Stacie wouldn't give up. Regardless of how much she didn't want to sell to the girl, she wasn't about to turn down the opportunity to make money. So, she smiled, and said, in as sickeningly sweet a voice as she could muster, "Please?"
Their potential customer groaned. "Fine. But I want the kind with nuts." Stacie bent down into the bag to reach into the boxes. "Got it! One chocolate bar for the nice-"
Stacie cut herself off mid-sentence when she realized that there were no bars with nuts inside. She looked up at Kimmy Jin, who stared down at her with a condescending look in her eye. "Um… there are no bars with nuts in this bag! But there may be some in my partner's! There are, right CR?"
But all she received from her friend was a slow head shake. "What the Hell? I thought Ashley and Lily got both kinds!" She panicked. "They did! The others probably have 'em!" CR quickly responded, trying to calm her down.
"How does that help?! We have a customer who isn't gonna get what they want!" Stacie yelled. "Would you calm down? Besides, nobody really eats the ones with nuts, anyway!" CR argued.
As they continued squabbling, Kimmy Jin looked at her wristwatch, and muttered to herself, "I don't have time for this. Have a nice sale, bitches." And with that, she closed the door, even though CR and Stacie, who were still arguing, barely paid attention.
"Look in your bag!" Stacie yelled, prompting a look that was a mix of confusion and anger from CR. "Hell, no! I checked already! There ain't nothing in there!" She protested.
And in their pointless argument, both of them failed to realize Jessica and Lily running down the hall, looking terrified beyond all belief. "Guys! GUYS! RUN!" Jessica yelled, but the two were still unable to hear them given the slight distance between the two pairs.
Once they were within hearing distance, Jessica screamed, at the top of her lungs, "RUN LIKE HELL!" And then, Lily jumped onto Stacie's arms, causing the latter to scream like a little girl.
"What in the name of-", CR started, but Jessica, after quickly grabbing Lily's bag, spoke in a low voice. "He's coming. So, we have to run."
"Who the Hell are you talking abou-", Stacie attempted to start talking at the same time as she finally got the petrified Lily off her back, but was interrupted by Donald's loud yelling, which sounded something like this: "CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE!"
With a horrified expression on her face, Stacie turned to face Jessica, Lily, and CR. "I see the problem." She whispered, the terror evident in her eyes.
"OH, DO YA?!" Jessica screeched, as the four took off running, all the while dreading the sound of Donald's almost war-cry like scream of: "CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE!"
All of the girls sat in a booth at Frank's diner. All of their heads were hung low… save for Amy, who slurped up the whipped cream from her milkshake, breaking what was a moment of silence for all of them.
"Let's face it, guys. We're not doing a good job at all. We haven't even sold one candy bar, and it's already lunch. We've been doing this for, what, two hours now?" Stacie grumbled, her fork poking at her salad. "We need a new approach. A new tactic." Ashley chimed in.
After popping the cherry into her mouth, Amy said, whilst chewing said cherry, "I got it! Let's get naked!"
CR spit out her drink onto the table. "NO! No. We are not. Resorting. To that!" Jessica growled. "I agree. Besides, we only wanna do that in case we get into real estate." Stacie muttered, and all CR could do in response was twitch her eye.
"There's gotta be something… what was the reason we bought all these bars?" Ashley questioned. "We want to make money." Amy bluntly, and quite honestly, responded.
"I'm serious! Why do we want to sell candy bars? Why did we turn down that guy's offer for those bags?" Ashley asked, as Amy stroked her chin, before having what could only be described as a 'eureka moment' by the others. "Oh! We didn't buy them because he seemed like a slimy dick, and thought we couldn't do this job right!"
Stacie slammed her hands down on the table. "Exactly! We just need to be more professional!" Lily nodded her head, and mouthed, "I'll buy the suits. The ones women can wear."
"Or we could just, y'know, try being nice?" Jessica suggested, resulting in her earning looks from all of the other girls. "Okay. That works, too." CR conceded, as the blonde rolled her eyes. "I'm surrounded by idiots…"
After lunch, the girls split up once more. This time, Ashley opted out of being with Amy, and was paired up with CR instead, and Stacie jumped at the opportunity to be with Lily, leaving Jessica with Amy. As you can imagine, neither person in the third pair was very happy about this.
Nevertheless, they were off once more, ready to cause more unintended mayhem in their area.
"Remember, Amy. We need to flatter the customer. Make them feel special." Jessica explained to the other girl, who wasn't paying much attention.
"I know. I was there when Stacie told us what to do. Basically, all we gotta do is kiss the customer's arse, and get 'em to buy our stuff." Amy mockingly responded, much to Jessica's ire. "Just play along." She commanded, clearly annoyed.
With their new pairings, the group decided collectively (through ten minutes of bickering) where they'd be reassigned. "At least we got the campus. I couldn't stand being back out there with Donald coming after us." Jessica thought, growing slightly nervous about the very thought of him.
Thankfully, Amy pulled her out of her worries by pointing out a door. "Here we are. Let's make some money!" She exclaimed. Jessica knocked on the door, and five seconds later, it was answered by a fairly skinny guy with dark hair. Jessica recognized him, but rarely spoke to him, or knew much about him. "Okay. Time to woo a customer!"
But before any words could escape her mouth, a thick Australian voice answered, in a monotonous deadpan, for her: "I love you."
As per expected, he slammed the door right in their faces. "What the Hell, Amy?! All you had to do was ask, 'how're you doing', and then try and sell him a chocolate bar! It was so easy!"
Amy shrugged her shoulders. "You aren't exactly innocent either, Cheery Eyes. If you didn't freeze up like you just saw the Basilisk, and actually said something, maybe he'd have listened."
Jessica wanted to say something. She really did. But at the same time, she had nothing to say, because she knew that Amy had a point. So instead, she turned around and, as softly as possible, banged her head against the wall.
Unfortunately, Jessica's self-pity was interrupted by Amy loudly chewing one of the candy bars. "What are you looking at, flat-butt? Don't you know it's rude to-"
But then Amy quickly stopped talking as Jessica glared at her. She even dropped the candy bar. "LISTEN. TO ME. Here's what's gonna happen: I'm gonna knock on the door again, and we're gonna do this right. One word out of you, and I'll set your room on fire. Capiche?" Jessica barked, as Amy nodded in response, clearly intimidated.
"Oh, and one more thing: if you comment on my butt one more time, I will get on top of Baker Hall, and shout into a megaphone that you had casual sex with Bumper before he left."
Amy gulped, before getting out of the way for the shorter girl to knock on the door, a determined look on her face.
It creaked open slightly, with the guy who answered earlier appearing, though he looked uncomfortable. "Please, go away. Whatever it is you're selling, I don't want it."
Then, Jessica's former look of determination turned into her signature smile. "Hi! How are you?" She asked. It shocked Amy. "She just went from being scarier than Aubrey to being sweet as apple pie. Mmm, pie… focus, Amy!"
Their potential customer opened the door, seeming to look a little more at ease. "How am I doing?" He asked, confused as to what was going on.
"Mmm hmm! Because, depending on your mood, you might or might not want a chocolate bar!" Jessica cheerfully explained, holding one up. "WE GOT HIM, NOW!" Amy yelled, making her partner and fellow Bella look at her with the same glare she had showcased she was capable of intimidating people with only moments earlier.
"Sorry, but I'm not much of a chocolate fan. We don't hang anymore." The junior admitted, as he pulled something out of his pocket. Jessica stared with wide eyes as she noticed what exactly she was getting a good look at.
It was a photo. One of him in dorky clothing. He wasn't necessarily overweight, but he certainly wasn't skinny, either. Next to the picture of him were the words 'ME AT 13' written in marker.
He handed the photo to Amy, who looked up at him and impulsively asked, "Can I keep this?"
As Jessica rolled her eyes, the boy shrugged his shoulders. "Sure. I've been meaning to give it away for a while. Good luck with your sale!" He then handed the photo to Amy, who said, "Well, at least we got this! Thanks, fella!"
Sighing, Jessica walked in tow of Amy, all the while thinking to herself, "Maybe I should've stayed home."
Stacie's head hung low as they walked around the frat house neighborhood. "We haven't sold a single candy bar. We're not doing a good job at all, Lily. We gotta stay focused. In fact, let's make a pact to sell a candy bar at the next house we go to!" She exclaimed, only to look over at Lily, and find that she wasn't paying any attention.
Lily looked up, and mumbled something. Stacie groaned, and said, "Oh, forget it. Look, just stay focused, okay?"
As they walked up to the B.U. Harmonics' house, Stacie turned to Lily, and reminded her, for what had to have been the five hundredth time, "Focus. We need to sell a candy bar, at any cost. Capiche?"
Lily nodded at her, and Stacie took a deep breath, before composing herself, and knocking on the door. Five seconds later, the door was opened, and a new member of the Harmonics, a young woman with short dark hair, answered. "Hello? Can I help-"
She was then cut off by Lily leaning in close to her, staring at her with wide eyes. She was constantly leaning in and out, further creeping the Harmonic member out. "Why is Silent Jack staring at me?"
Lily continued to lean in and out, never once breaking eye contact with their customer's face, all the while thinking: "Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing. Focusing."
Eventually, Lily leaned in too close, and had completely pissed off the Harmonic. As she backed away, her grip on the door tightening, she yelled, "Back up, freak!"
Lily then found herself coming face to wood with the door. As it slammed directly in front of her, she moved her eyes up towards the window in the door.
The woman from before glared at Lily, who responded, in her signature small voice, "Nice place you've got here."
She then looked back at Stacie, who pinched the bridge of her nose, all the while shaking her head. "We haven't sold a single candy bar. Not a single candy bar. Instead, we've had people chasing after us, Amy being an idiot, and everything in general just screwing up. I hate my life. I hate my life, and everything about it."
Lily sympathetically patted Stacie on the back. "Don't feel bad. At least Donald isn't chasing after us." She muttered, a half-smile formed on her face.
Not ten seconds later, Donald came running down the street, once again yelling at the sky, "CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE!"
The two friends groaned, before they began running again. And all that Stacie could manage to say? "Shit."
Ashley and CR walked around the campus, hoping to spot people to sell the candy to. "Okay, so far, nobody has gotten any customers. You know what that means, right? We gotta be the ones to actually sell something. The only question is 'how'? How do we sell 'em?" Ashley asked CR as the two wandered aimlessly.
"Maybe we just need to lie a little. I mean, look at all those commercials for those Japanese Radish Chips. They all say they're delicious, when they're gross as shit." CR commented, to which Ashley nodded her head in agreement.
"You're right! Those things are nasty, and still, people buy them every damn day! We just need to stretch the truth." She conceded, before noticing in the corner of her eye the perfect candidates for customers: the High-Notes.
"CR… look over there. What do you see?" Ashley pointed them out, eyeing them like a predator and its prey. CR looked over, and grinned a devilish grin. "What I see are customers. And by that, I mean suckers looking to pay money for candy bars."
Ashley, with a devilish grin of her own, nodded her head. "What a perfect opportunity."
The two sped over to their potential customers, who were mostly standing on the quad wandering aimlessly, talking to themselves, and smoking lots of pot. It was a stroke of luck for both Ashley and CR that they had found them, for if they hadn't, they most likely would have given up hope entirely.
"Um, hi!" Ashley awkwardly interrupted, gaining the attention of the High-Notes. In turn, they all stared at her with confused, somewhat frustrated looks on their faces. "Who is she?" One of them, who looked very high, asked.
"Um, well, I'm-" Ashley began, only to be interrupted by what looked to be a senior member, a tall male with a long beard. "I know who this is! How could I forget one of Santa's elves?"
CR could barely contain her laughter, and had to look away from both the High-Notes, who were staring at her with those same confused looks, and Ashley, who could only glare with clear annoyance in her eyes.
"Why is Santa's elf here in April?" One of them, a pink-haired girl with pigtails, asked. "Well, Santa sent me here from the North Pole because… uh…", Ashley stuttered, silently begging God, whom she referred to as 'The Big Guy', to help her through what was, in Ashley's own words, "The worst day of her life (so far)".
"Look, we just wanna sell ya'll some chocolate bars. Would you take some time to buy some? I mean, it ain't like you're busy." CR stepped in, easing Ashley considerably. "Cynthia-Rose Jones, you are my hero."
The girl with pink pigtails suddenly got a wide-eyed expression on her face, and a great big grin stretched across it. "Chocolate. I remember when chocolate was first invented. Sweet, sweet chocolate. I ALWAYS HATED IT!" She then yelled, visibly startling the two saleswomen.
"But-but this kind of chocolate isn't just for eating! It's for, uh…" The brunette stuttered, incapable of coming up with any other function for the candy bar.
Fortunately, CR stepped in front of her, and said, with complete confidence in her voice, "These have a secret ingredient in them!" Almost instantly, this caught the stoners' attention, not to mention her partner's.
There were murmurs among the High-Notes, many of them wondering what the 'secret ingredient' was, before CR said out loud, "These chocolate bars have been specially made in a lab by me and my partner here. And guess what we put in 'em?"
No response. Still, CR enthusiastically answered with, "That's right! Pot! Fresh, legalized marijuana! Made specially for you! Only for ten dollars. Now, who wants a chocolate bar?"
All at once, the High-Notes stood up, scrambling to take out their wallets and get out their dollars. They then huddled over to CR, taking several bars, exchanging them for a dollar each.
And as they went back to their aimless wandering and meandering on the quad, CR looked at Ashley with what could only be described by Beca as 'The Look CR Gives When She Has An Evil Thought'.
"That was brilliant! Great work!" Ashley complimented, as CR nodded her head. "It was just the first thing I thought of. Hell, what if we kept doing this for the rest of the sale?"
Ashley's eyebrows rose. "What do you mean by that?" She asked, before CR responded. "I mean what if we keep stretching the truth? Face it, half the folks here will believe anything. If we can convince them that these chocolate bars are actually worth anything besides just eating them, we can actually make a sale!"
Ashley gave an evil grin of her own. "Damn, you're good. Shall I text the other girls of this little plan?" And all the authorization the brunette needed was an (admittedly creepy) eyebrow dance from her fellow saleswoman.
At the Tone Hangers' house, Stacie and Lily, still out of breath after running away from Donald, sold whatever bullshit came to their minds, and used it as a sales tactic.
"It'll keep you from getting erectile dysfunction." Lily muttered, as one of the members eagerly pulled out his wallet. "Oh, this is gonna be great! I've been trying to make it work with my wife recently, and she's gonna be so happy!" He enthusiastically exclaimed as he passed the girls fifty dollars and took five bars.
At the house of Dr. Mitchell, whom Jessica and Amy were not aware was Beca's Father, they stood outside the door, holding up the bars and coming up with ways to stretch the truth.
"It'll help you on your period!" Jessica sweetly explained, which creeped Amy out because of the topic at hand.
Nevertheless, Dr. Mitchell, completely believing the crap that was essentially being spoon fed to him like a child with the 'airplane' routine, pulled out his wallet, and grabbed three bars in exchange for thirty dollars. "This is great. Thank you!"
And the more they explored the campus, the more lies they told. "Your hair will stop graying!" "Your boobs will look normal!" "You'll walk through walls!" "You'll float, too!" And with every lie came in a lot of money. Business was good.
"Business isn't good, guys." Stacie said, as they all trudged along the campus neighborhood, carrying a total of 72 more chocolate bars in their hands. "We've sold about half of those boxes, each one coming with about and we've still got about half left to sell! I mean, we've only made, what? 720 dollars?"
Amy groaned, mostly because she was sick of the heat and of Stacie's rambling. "Well, still! We've made money! I mean, maybe we could end up being entrepreneurs in, what, five minutes? Anything can happen!"
As soon as she said this, Amy fell to the ground, letting out a yelp as she collapsed, dropping her chocolate box, which contained ten more bars, onto the ground.
With a sigh, Jessica set her box on the ground, and helped Amy up. "Thanks, flat-er, I mean, Jess."
Stacie then sat on the curb, dropping her box in front of her. "Let's face it, guys. We're failures." Her fellow Bellas sat next to her in shame. Predictably, only Amy said anything. "I can live with that. I've been a failure all my life. Nothing's changed, now."
Lily muttered, "Let's all change our names to 'Why' and 'Bother'."
In their act of wallowing in self-pity, none of the girls seemed to realize that Donald was directly behind them. It's no wonder that they all screamed when he yelled, loudly and clearly in their ears, "CHOCOLATE!"
Scattered on the street, the six girls sat in fear of the deranged Treblemaker standing before them, cackling maniacally. "Please, don't hurt us!" Stacie yelled. "I'll do you one better: why is he chasing us around?!" Jessica questioned. "I'll do you one better: Lily has the most meat on her despite being the smallest!" Amy screeched, earning her confused looks from the others for a moment, and a small flipping of the bird from Lily.
They then quickly went back to screaming their heads off, all begging him to stay away and silently praying that they'd live to see another day. But Donald continued to make his way towards the girls, before standing directly above them, laughing with a look of blatant insanity in his eyes.
"FINALLY! I've been trying to catch you girls all day! AND NOW THAT I'VE GOT YOU RIGHT WHERE I WANT YOU… I'd like to buy all your chocolate!" He finished his sentence with a cheerful tone of voice, as he pulled out what CR recognized as ten one hundred dollar bills.
The girls then all fell on their backs, relieved that the guy who they perceived as a madman, turned out to be nothing but another customer. "Thank you for your patronage." Lily said out loud.
The girls carried their money in a wheelbarrow that Amy found, and didn't bother to dispute with the others where she found it, all while CR pushed it down the street and back to Casa Bella.
"This is great!" Stacie cheered, smiling with enthusiasm. "I told you we'd be entrepreneurs in five minutes!" Amy yelled, which normally would've annoyed the others, but didn't here because they were all happy to just have some money to call their own.
"Well, now that we have all this money, what are we gonna do with it?" CR asked, as Stacie wrapped her finger thumb, pointer and middle-finger around her chin.
Then, she snapped her fingers, and announced, "I have an idea."
At the Moonrise Cafe in downtown Atlanta, Beca walked through the doors dressed in a neat black dress-coat, a stainless white button-down, and a checkered black and white skirt.
With a smile on her face, she went over to the front desk of the restaurant, and politely asked, "Good evening, miss! Table for one, please. It's reserved under Rebecca Anne Mitchell."
Unexpectedly for Beca, the receptionist replied, in an easily recognizable British accent, "My apologies, but the whole restaurant has been rented out to a private party, of sorts."
Suddenly growing confused and frustrated, Beca bemused, "But, I reserved this table a week in advance! This is the only night I've been looking forward to for the past week!"
Nodding her head sympathetically, the receptionist continued, "I understand your frustration. But you must see that the restaurant has been rented out, and we'll have to postpone your reservation until the next available time."
Beca groaned. "Ugh, this is so stupid! Who the Hell would even rent out an entire restaurant, anyway?!" The receptionist quickly responded, "Oh, just six young, beautiful entrepreneurs. In fact, I believe one of them even has a date!"
The Bellas and the boy from earlier that Jessica and Amy had tried to sell chocolate to sat in a booth with a window that offered a beautiful view of the city. On one side of the table, Jessica, the boy, Lily, and CR sat, while on the other, Stacie, Ashley, and Amy sat contently, sipping the finest wine in the house.
They were dressed oddly, to say the least. Stacie insisted that they all wear their best dresses, but Amy said she'd only put hers on if they all wore top hats.
And so they did. And here they were, six female entrepreneurs wearing nice dresses and top hats and a boy casually dressed in button-up and jeans.
"So, you never told us your name, fella!" Amy called attention to the young man, who looked slightly embarrassed by this.
His case was made worse when all of the girls joined in asking for his name. Nevertheless, he chuckled, and said, "Well, my name is-"
He was then interrupted by an unexpected tap on the window. Three seconds later, he and the other girls looked out to see none other than Beca Mitchell, standing directly outside with her mouth agape. And what were the first words to come out of the co-captain of the Barden Bellas' mouth upon setting her eyes on this odd sight?
"What the fuck?"
Author's Note: And here's that fun little story I promised you last month! Don't worry, I'm still gonna work on TGITAGAG (The Guy In The All-Girl Acapella Group) and I'm really trying to figure out where I wanna go with Thunderbird and Thunderbird: Guardian Angel, but for now, I hope this entertains you and that you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it!
For all you folks out there who are sad this didn't have a hint of BeChloe, and didn't even really feature them that much, I always wanted to do this type of story with the other girls since I thought it'd be fun to place them in this situation and give them more of the spotlight for once.
Anyways, that's all for today! Thank you all for taking the time to read this story. If you're feeling generous, please leave a review giving your thoughts or any comments you may have on the story, or give the story a follow and/or favorite. And, as always, stay safe and sound, folks. Until next time, I'm the Flying Hawaiian 001, always dreaming, always scheming, and always cooking up new and wacky material for you guys!