A/N: I'm back! Nobody missed me? That's cool. Based off of a prompt I received from luxraygun on tumblar.
Chloe was getting tired of the sidelong glances. Of watching, seeing... and never reaching for the one thing she really wanted. Granted, her watching wasn't very... subtle, judging from her outright ogling during Bellas practice. Nor was her ability to hide the toner she had for a certain petite brunette (with a delectably rebellious ear spike, multiple tattoos, and a penchant for sarcastic smirks) particularly existent. But she tried! She wasn't someone who was very good at hiding things, since the secret of her nodes, which she had promised never to tell Aubrey about, lasted less than half a day.
But then again, how often did cute alternative girls sing her lady jam? And in the shower, no less! It wasn't her fault! The acoustics in the showers are horrid, what with the echoing and the dripping and the shower curtains and... but they still managed to sound absolutely stunning together, and it really couldn't be helped when she'd been incredibly turned on by the end of that.
And it wasn't her fault she'd been found out! She had been in the middle of a very intense lady jam time shortly after the initiation, and hadn't noticed Aubrey walk into their shared room. Aubrey, who was very used to this kind of thing (because she was very used to Chloe, having been best friends and roommates for years), had just sat down at her desk to start on her readings. Aubrey, who usually just ignored her if she ever accidentally saw this kind of thing... which was often, had been about to put her own headphones on to block out Chloe's quiet moans. Aubrey, who wouldn't and couldn't let her live down the fact that Beca's beautiful name had fallen, reverently, from her lips in the height of her ecstasy, had heard her as the climax of the song had ripped through her body. It hadn't been her fault at all.
Aubrey had immediately run over and ripped her headphones from her ears, with a sort of deranged gleam in her eyes. And while the tinny sounding ending bars of Titanium could be heard from her crappy gel earbuds on her mattress, Chloe had just stared at Aubrey as Aubrey's mouth had worked its way into a weird devilish smirk. Chloe's face had slowly turned bright red as she realized just what had happened ("So that's what blushing feels like," Chloe had thought), and she had prayed for the powers that be to strike her down where she lay. She had waited for Aubrey to say something, but Aubrey just smirked at her, staring down at her half-naked self. And when Aubrey had opened her mouth to say the one thing that Chloe hadn't really wanted her to know, Chloe finally lowered her gaze.
"You have a toner for Beca!"
That had been that. Her secret had flown out of the cage, because the cages she had for secrets were shoddily built, since she had no practice in doing anything like that. And every day, when she saw Aubrey in their room, Aubrey would just smirk at her. She knew she could trust the blonde to keep her secret, but that didn't mean that, when they were alone, Aubrey didn't constantly pester her about it.
\o/
"Are you going to do anything about it?"
It was several weeks before regionals, and as she usually did, Chloe tried to play it off. "About what?" She sighed and put her pen in the textbook, closing it to mark her place, before turning to face Aubrey, who was sitting on her bed, books splayed around her and notepad in her lap. She'd have to read this passage later, every time Aubrey started talking about Beca, she lost her train of thought.
"Your toner for the girl with the horrible fashion sense?"
"She doesn't have horrible fashion sense, you harpie!" Chloe pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at her roommate, knowing, from the evil grin that was spreading across Aubrey's face, that she had just walked into her trap. "She's perfect the way she is." Chloe rolled her eyes at the Aubrey's mocking "awwwww" and continued. "If I'm going to do anything about it, I promise that you'll be the first person I consult."
Aubrey's eyes gleamed. "Good." She nodded emphatically. "You know I've got your back, like you've got mine."
\o/
Chloe really didn't know, because the very next morning, after practice, Aubrey was confronting Beca about her toner for Jesse (again), and glancing over at Chloe with a look that only the girl in question would be able to notice. Beca walked away, eyes unflinchingly hard with barely suppressed annoyance, this being the tenth time that Aubrey had questioned her on this. The first time the confrontation had happened, prior to Chloe divulging her deepest, darkest secret to the world, Chloe's heart had fluttered at Beca's admission to her and Jesse's relationship being "not like that", but, in the weeks following, everything she saw while wandering the quad (not that she would ever wander the quad to catch glimpses of Beca... of course not!) suggested otherwise. At this point, just hearing about Jesse caused her heart to sink more than it really had to.
This time, however, was a little different than the last nine times.
"Prove it, then, Beca." Beca stopped right beside Chloe, nose flaring. "Prove it to me and the rest of your Bella sisters." Some of the other girls had lingered, curious about the latest clash between freshman and senior Bella.
Beca glanced over at Chloe, who grimaced apologetically. Aubrey was doing this for her. Aubrey was doing this for her...
Aubrey was doing a horrible job of doing this for her.
Beca looked quizzically over at her, before rolling her eyes.
Jaw set, Beca whirled around to face her captain. "There's nothing to prove! Nothing's happening! Maybe if you put as much effort into modernizing the setlist as you do meddling in my non-existent love life, we'd have a better chance against the Treblemakers!" Beca threw her hands up in the air in disgust before racing out the door with her bag, oblivious of the bright blue eyes that followed her out.
The rest of the girls eventually left for their morning classes, leaving Chloe and Aubrey alone in the silent auditorium, save for the shuffling of pages and the occasional sniffle.
"Aubrey?" Chloe slowly walked over to the sniffling blonde. "Are you okay?"
The blonde whirled around and launched herself at her best friend. "I'm not helping at all!" Chloe wrapped her arms around the wailing girl, and sat down on the closest chair, cradling the blonde, before running her fingers through Aubrey's hair, knowing that this was one of the rare ways to calm Aubrey down.
"It's okay, you know. You don't have to try..." Chloe smiled down at her. "I'm pretty content just watching her."
Sniffling, Aubrey looked up at the ginger. "I just want to help you be happy!" Chloe's smile grew. She really had the best friend in the world, even if Aubrey didn't always have the best way of showing it.
"I am happy! I have you, and the Bellas, and Beca came to auditions, and it's okay!" Chloe sighed. "It really is." She nodded, as if to convince herself.
Taking a deep breath, a teary-eyed Aubrey silently decided that they needed a new plan.
TBC
Notes: My apologies for disappearing for upwards of a year. Anyway, other fics are still being worked on (really slowly. really... really slowly. blame the IRLs.), so maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to squeeze another fic update into the works before the next century. This one here is honestly my attempt to work the rust off of my writing chops, not that I had writing chops in the first place, amirite? ha. Anyway, next chapter of this is Beca's POV.