So I've only seen the movie once, but I am officially hooked. I've been reading fic nonstop since I saw it, and I thought I'd go ahead and give it my own try. Most likely going to (attempt to) make this a multi-chap. We'll see how that goes.
It'd be kind of romantic, the whole kissing-after-winning-nationals thing. In a predictable, rom-com kind of way, at least.
Except, with this rom-com, there was one little factor that maybe would have instilled a bit of doubt into the audience's mind, if they'd had open enough ones. One little factor that could have changed the way this chapter of her story ended, Beca knew.
But she's trying not to think about that right now, because Jesse—sweet, talented, kind of dorky Jesse—is kissing her over a row of chairs in the audience after they just freaking won, damn it, and Beca doesn't have the time, right now, to analyze whether that feeling in the pit of her stomach is happiness or dread or loss or longing—no, Beca does not have time for that. Right now.
But later, in Amy and Cynthia rose's hotel room, almost drunk—okay, almost really drunk—and laying on the couch, Beca's mind is only occupied by the girls' sounds of different stages of drunkenness and by counting the tiles on the ever-moving ceiling she's staring at. And since that doesn't really require any thinking—especially once she gives up on counting, after a while—Beca's mind inevitably drifts to Jesse and to that one small factor that could have, maybe should have changed everything—
"Heyyy, Becs! Beca, Becs, Beeeeeee…" Chloe starts off almost yelling, but trails off to a near-whisper. Beca slowly sits up at the sound of her friend's voice so that Chloe can practically collapse against her smaller body. "How're you doin', Bec?"
Normally, Beca wouldn't giggle, but she's a little more than tipsy, right now—fine, she's drunk—and, so, she giggles at the way Chloe's slurred words sound to her inebriated mind, as well as at how the rarely-used nickname coming from Chloe Beale's mouth makes Beca feel. "Pretty awesome, Chlo," she replies through a hiccup.
"Good, that's good, me, too," Chloe says with a smile, wrapping her arms snugly around Beca's waist as her head lies on Beca's shoulder. "I'm glad we won."
"So am I—"
"You kissed Jesse."
The change in tone is very abrupt, causing Beca's head to snap over in order to face Chloe. She hesitates before answering, not being able to see Chloe's face and, therefore, not being able to tell how she's feeling.
Beca, in turn, feels remarkable more sober, right now.
"Um, yeah, I did," she finally says.
"Was it nice?"
"Uh, I guess?"
"So you liked it, then?" Now, Chloe lifts her head to look back at Beca, her arms falling limply around the smaller girl as her own big blue eyes stared so openly.
Not really. "Yeah, it was nice." Beca clears her throat. "Like I said."
Chloe pouts a bit, and if the girl wasn't so drunk, Beca could swear that she's doing it to purposely get under Beca's skin. "Did you like it more than you'd like kissing me?"
Beca feels her skin flush from something other than the alcohol. Before now, she hadn't realized how quiet the rest of the room had gotten. The pounding of her own pulse in her ears must have made her deaf to the goings on around the two of them. Silence now permeated the air. Beca dares a glance around the room to make sure nobody is lying on their back, but soon enough, her eyes are drawn back to the blue ones in front of her. "Um," she stutters, swearing that Chloe is closer now than she had been before.
Chloe giggles—not so uncharacteristically, for her. She leans forward until their noses rub together, something so adorably Chloe that Beca's having a hard time distinguishing between what is truly meant and what is done out of the flavored vodka running through the ginger's veins. Beca had stopped drinking long ago, because the taste had gotten unbearable; the smell of alcohol on Chloe's breath makes Beca's chest hurt, but she doesn't dare move away.
"What if I kissed you right now?" Chloe says in little more than a whisper. Her voice sends shivers throughout Beca's body, but she finds herself speechless.
Her lips part ever-so-slightly, however, and that seems to be enough of an invite, because suddenly, Chloe's lips are brushing against her own, so softly, so gently, so—not like Jesse.
And Beca feels her heart simultaneously swell and break at the feeling. Her hands somehow find themselves buried in Chloe's red hair, forcing her closer so that Beca can get as much as she can from this moment.
Because she can always pass it off on the alcohol, right?