A/N: Stumbled across bechloe-week on Tumblr a little while ago, and decided a week of prompts might be a good way to get back in to writing some fic. Certainly not my first fic - I have a few 150,000-word-plus type things in another fandom on Tumblr - but it's been a couple years since I've written. Apologies if it's a little rusty.
Not sure if I like the horizontal lines for time/scene jumps but I guess that's the thing on here.
Bechloe Week 2017 Monday 24th July Prompt: Coincidence
"So why are you suddenly showing up to lectures?" Stacie asks, looking pointedly at Beca. "Any chance it's a certain person sitting… four rows from the front?"
"It's the start of a Semester, idiot. You know I always come for the first week," Beca grumbles in reply, opening her laptop and switching into the right document for notes. It wasn't a lie – Beca did always go to the first week of lectures for a course so she could work out at exactly which points in the semester she had to actually pay attention in order to pass. As much as she didn't want to be here, Beca had accepted that, at least, if she passed all her courses first try, she'd have a degree and be out of here soon enough.
"I'm pretty sure redhead lives a couple of rooms down from us, you know," Stacie murmurs under her breath, and Beca just shoots a glare at her as the lecturer taps the microphone at the front of the room and starts talking.
Beca isn't actually quite sure who this redhead Stacie keeps pointing out is – she's seen the girl around a bit in the last year, sure, and she's in all the same lectures as Beca, so maybe she's doing the same course. And maybe she's ridiculously attractive, and Beca made the mistake of telling Stacie that one night (she may have been a tiny bit intoxicated at the time, maybe) and hasn't heard the end of it since. She's honestly not entirely sure if Stacie chose this one elective course because she actually wanted to use her free elective to study it, or because it'd give her an opportunity to tease Beca about the redhead.
Stacie had another lecture, for one of her crazy advanced science courses or something that Beca could never quite get her head around, so Beca wandered back across campus to the dorm buildings herself. She'd done the traditional dorm thing last year, complete with a roommate who she saw many times but never said a single word to, but this year she'd managed to get a three-bedroom on-campus apartment with Stacie, and Jessica, another girl she was yet to actually see despite all of them having moved in two weeks ago.
"Hey, neighbour," a painfully bright voice calls out as she approaches her door, fumbling around in her bag for her key. She looks up, more out of habit than actual will, and is met with the damn redhead. Stacie must have been right.
"Uh- yeah, hi," Beca manages to reply, half-mumbling and quickly looking back to her bag, pretending she's still looking for her key, although she has located it.
"I'm Chloe," the bubbly voice adds, and Beca refuses to acknowledge the thought that Chloe's tone isn't quite as annoying as she'd usually find something like that. Beca risks another quick look up at the girl, nodding her head in acknowledgement before looking back and unlocking her door. "And you are…?" Chloe prompts, as Beca reaches for the door handle. Dammit. She can't really just ignore the girl, can she?
"Uh, Beca," she replies quickly.
"Well you look like you're in a hurry, so I'll see you around," Chloe says, and Beca makes the mistake of looking up again just in time to see the girl wink at her. Feeling her cheeks start to burn, she quickly shoves her body against the door to open it as quickly as possible and manages to stumble into her apartment and shut the door behind herself.
"Oh, hey," a voice comes from inside the apartment, and Beca jumps back against the door in surprise as she looks up at the girl standing in her apartment. "Um, I'm Jessica. Was there a redhead just out there? Chloe?" she asks.
"Um, yeah, I think so?" Beca answers, bringing her hand up to the back of her neck. "I'm Beca, by the way."
"Yeah, I guessed that, Stacie told me what you look like," she replies with a smile, and Beca takes a deep breath. "Well, I'm gonna head out before Chloe gets annoyed. I'll have to introduce you to her sometime, you'd probably get along," Jessica motions towards the door that Beca is still pressed against, and Beca manages a nod of acknowledgement as she moves out of the way and towards her room, saving the frustrated shake of her head until she's safely inside her room and certain that Jessica has left. Of course, her roommate had to be friends with the redhead – well, Chloe,– and seem like she wants to introduce them. Beca really does not need that this year. She just needs to study, and work, and maybe… her train of thought is interrupted by a low grumbling as she remembers that she hasn't actually eaten anything decent since last night. Okay, she definitely needs to learn to cook.
She's sure it's just a silly coincidence that Jessica is friends with Chloe. It's not like Beca actually likes Chloe or anything, anyway. She just thinks she's kinda attractive. That's all.
"Hey, just checking it's cool with you guys if I invite my friend Chloe over for dinner? We're cooking, we can cook enough for you guys too if you're gonna be around," Jessica rambles excitedly on a Saturday afternoon a few weeks later. Beca retreats in to her room as soon as Stacie agrees, planning to stay there until at least tomorrow morning – she has snacks, she thinks – but of course, Stacie doesn't respect her wishes.
"So, you talked to her yet?"
Beca yelps and jumps out of her chair, throwing her headphones off to see Stacie sitting on her bed. She was so sure she locked her door, but apparently she had not.
"What the fuck, dude?"
"Well, have you talked to her?"
"Jessica? Yeah, I've talked to her a few times, she seems nice," Beca turns back around in her chair, avoiding Stacie's eye roll at her faked misunderstanding.
"You know who I mean," Stacie sounds almost annoyed, and Beca sighs, reluctantly shifting in her chair again to talk to Stacie.
"Like… not really. She's in literally all of my tutes though," She explains, shaking her head awkwardly.
"Dude! Talk to her! You have so much reason to!" Stacie exclaims, bouncing on the bed, and Beca winces as she hears the springs creak.
"And she has so much reason to think it'd fucking weird if I do…"
"Hey Beca!" Chloe bounds into the 9am Tuesday class they share and takes the seat beside her. Beca mumbles something vaguely resembling a greeting in response, before instinctually shifting her chair a little further away from Chloe. "Are you going to the rooftop party?" Chloe asks.
"Um- I don't know, Stacie will probably drag me there," Beca replies, mildly surprised that she managed to string together a sentence so quickly. "Are you?"
"Sure, there'll be cheap drinks, so why not?" Chloe nudges her shoulder and Beca has to stop herself flinching away from the contact, blushing at her response. You'd think after four weeks of the redhead sitting beside her in classes and inadvertently getting in her personal space, she would have at least got a little used to it.
Sure enough, Stacie does drag her to the party in their building's rooftop garden on Friday night. There was some silly 90s dress up theme, and Stacie went all out – of course – but Beca, as usual, stuck to her jeans and flannel. If, god forbid, anyone asks, she's pretty sure she could make up something about flannels being a 90s thing. It might even be true, she's not quite sure and doesn't really care enough to find out.
"Beca! You came!" she hears Chloe's voice before actually seeing her, somehow, and doesn't have time to react before she's pulled into a tight hug. She settles into the rather nice feeling of Chloe's arms around her shoulders for a moment, before remembering that she has absolutely no chance with the girl and pulls back.
"Personal space," she mumbles, avoiding looking at Chloe and missing the mildly hurt look as she pulls away.
"Nonsense. Hugs. How are you?" Chloe brushes off her comment and she resigns herself to the awkward small talk that is sure to follow.
"Alright, how are you?" She answers, mentally kicking herself. She always says alright instead of okay and she's really been trying to change that but-
"Still too sober and whoever's picking the music has terrible taste, but otherwise okay," Chloe replies, her tone light and joking, but Beca can't help but grumble her annoyance at the music playing in response.
It's 45 minutes later before Beca decides she can't let herself spend any more time with Chloe without probably embarrassing herself, and drifts away from the redhead to see if she can find Stacie. It's not that she got sick of talking to Chloe – god, she could've happily talked to her for hours, because it turns out they share the passion for music that Beca sees as the main defining characteristic of herself as a person – but she was terrified that Chloe was getting sick of talking to her.
"Hey loser!" Stacie grabs Beca's arm as she wanders up to her, clearly at least a bit drunk. Beca had been too busy talking to Chloe to even think about having more than the first drink Stacie bought her as a thanks for being dragged here when they arrived. Clearly, Stacie had not stopped at one. "Where've you been?"
"Um, just talking to Chloe," Beca answers, feeling herself blush as she speaks the redheads name. Stacie giggles at her and Beca kind of regrets coming over to her, until Stacie pulls her into a hug – god, what was with all the physical contact tonight? – and leans in to whisper in her ear.
"She was so flirting with you, Bec," Stacie whispers a little too loud and Beca flinches away and out of the hug, her mind putting a little too much faith in the statement's accuracy. Chloe was just being friendly, of course, she wasn't flirting.
"Do you really think- no, no she wasn't," Beca answers her own question, but Stacie just shakes her head and wanders off, leaving Beca to quickly scan around for someone else she knew to try and follow around so she wasn't standing around by herself.
"Mocha?" The waitress asks, and Beca indicates towards the table in front of her. She takes a sip of her drink the second the waitress turns away, knowing it will be too hot but perfectly happy to burn her mouth so she can ignore Stacie staring expectantly at her across the table, and the ridiculously coloured unicorn frappe her friend had ordered sitting between them.
"So? What do you think?" Stacie asks when Beca finally meets her burning gaze.
"Your drink? I think it's fucking ironic that a med science student is drinking something so clearly made of sugar and food dye," Beca retorts, "that thing'll knock five years off your life."
Stacie rolls her eyes, "No, idiot. It's all natural!" Her tone rises defensively before she pauses, continuing more evenly, "why do you think you're seeing Chloe everywhere this year? It has to mean something, right? You stalking-"
"It doesn't mean anything," Beca cuts her off, "I mean, our roommate is friends with her, so."
"Most of the times you see her don't involve Jess though!"
"I'm sure it's just a coincidence, Stace. Anyway, I'm just doing my normal thing, so if anyone's stalking someone it's her stalking me," Beca's sentence finishes with her usual grumble of annoyance at Stacie. Sometimes she's not sure why they're friends.
"I promise I'm not stalking anyone, is it cool if I sit here?" a familiar voice sounds to Beca's side, and she almost jumps out of her chair in fear. She's not quite sure what a heart attack feels like, but she's pretty sure the pounding in her chest is getting towards that territory.
"Oh, yeah, sure, actually I was just about to go, so take my spot?" Stacie offers, and Beca places a swift kick to her shin under the table before Stacie can move. Chloe doesn't seem to notice Stacie wince and shoot a glare at Beca.
Unfortunately, the kick didn't do enough damage to stop Stacie walking away and leaving Beca alone with Chloe, torn between which is worse out of this and wasting the $4.50 mocha she's barely touched yet. At least Stacie's stupid pink drink was takeaway. Lucky bitc-
"Earth to Beca?" she's snapped back to reality as Chloe waves a hand in front of her face.
"Sorry, zoned out," she mumbles before copying her own strategy from before and taking a sip of the mocha to prolong the time before she inevitably had to converse.
"Clearly. So why am I stalking you?" Chloe asks, her eyebrows creasing and a slight frown evident on her lips. "I'm not, by the way," she quickly adds, after a moment of silence.
"Um, I guess I keep seeing you everywhere?" Beca answers, unable to think of a decent lie quickly enough.
"I've noticed that too, actually. Won't complain, you're easy on the eyes," Chloe answers with a smirk and Beca can feel her cheeks burning. "Sorry, I will admit it's not exactly a coincidence we're in the same place a lot. I just think you're pretty cool," Chloe adds, with an uncharacteristically awkward smile.
"I- uh- me? Uh-" Beca struggles to formulate a proper sentence in her surprise, "thanks, uh, yeah, you are- you are too. Pretty cool, I mean."
"I take it back. You're actually adorable," Chloe laughs lightly, and Beca looks down and shakes her head. "Hey, Beca?"
"Yeah?" She looks up again, surprised by Chloe's slightly more hesitant and serious tone.
"Is there any chance you maybe want to go on a date with me sometime?" Chloe asks, Beca watching her hands twist around each other nervously on the table in front of her.
"Um, yeah. That would be- that'd be nice," Beca answers maybe a little too quickly, but the bright smile Chloe gives her in response kind of makes her forget to be embarrassed.