A/N: It's now over an hour into 2016 where I am, so I whipped something up quickly for you all so we can all start the new year on a positive note. Hope you all had a lovely 2015, and here's hoping 2016 is even better.

(If you're following anything else I write, I'm so sorry for the delays or lack of postings. I've been plagued with writers's block and a terrible case of sadness that I'm trying to push through.)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in here. Pitch Perfect - both 1 and 2 - belong to Kay Cannon and the rest of the folk responsible for this delightful movie.

The house is empty as Beca trudges in.

She stops in the living room and looks around, blinking against the overwhelming silence pressing in against her on all sides. The Bellas are all out and about, getting hammered no doubt in preparation for the New Year to roll in. Beca herself had had the misfortune of working that night; apparently Dax had somehow gotten into one of the sound booths and managed to mess everything up completely, and Beca was tasked with fixing things. Of course, Beca wouldn't have had any issues recalibrating the sound board and all the other things Dax messed up had she been working alone. But no, Dax had insisted on helping (see: messing things up again as soon as Beca fixed them).

After he knocked down the microphone for the third time, Beca snapped – much like her boss – and sent Dax to sit in a corner.

Now usually Beca's more than happy to have the house to herself in silence, but something about being alone on the eve of the New Year was rubbing Beca the wrong way. Perhaps it was because it was because it would be the last New Year she'd usher in with her Bellas.

Or the fact that it'd be her last chance to steel her nerves and kiss a certain redheaded co-captain.

The Bellas – led by Stacie – always teased her about her enormous toner for Chloe, constantly reassuring her that the toner was "totes mutual," and she should "make a move already!"

But Beca was too chicken. She likes to pretend she's awesome and fearless and the shit, but the truth is as simple as that; Beca Effin' Mitchell is a coward.

So Beca flicks on the TV because even if she hates movies, she can't stand the claustrophobic silence around her and needs the generic Hollywood movie that's chock-full of big names without much of a plot to serve as background noise as she wearily wanders into the kitchen, her energy too zapped to make more than a bowl of cereal. But the phone rings and even though she lets it go to voicemail, she finds herself running out to get it because the voice leaving a message belongs to Chloe, telling anyone that's listening that she's stuck in traffic but she's on her way back to the house.

Naturally, years of cardio have done nothing for Beca and she's too slow to pick up the phone.

Nerves started to get to Beca; the clock was ticking by and the New Year was almost there, and she had a gorgeous redhead – whom she's been stupid in love with from the moment she got to Barden – on her way back to an empty house. What was she going to do?

The closer it got to midnight, the more elaborate Beca's plans to hide got. Her hands shook; her breathing was rapid and frantic; her heart could rival any beat David Guetta could make; and her body was rapidly soaking with nervous sweats.

She was about to head to the shower when the door burst open, a panting Chloe standing in the doorway with her hair in a messy ponytail and her clothes disheveled.

"Beca?!"

The brunette had never seen Chloe look quite this stunning.

"Living room, Chlo," she calls out uselessly because Chloe's locked her eyes on Beca already and is making her way towards her with a level of purpose like nothing Beca's ever seen before.

She idly catches sight of the clock, eyes widening because it's 11:59 pm already, and the closer Chloe gets the clearer it becomes that she's counting down that last minute.

"3…"

Chloe's eyes darken with determination. Beca swallows as her heart pounds.

"…2"

Big baby blue eyes flick down to Beca's lips as the brunette wets her lips with her dry and rough, sandpaper-like tongue.

"1."

Beca barely has the wits to draw in a deep breath before Chloe's soft and delicious lips crashes against hers.

The brunette's thankful because her brain kicks her motor functions into high gear, Beca's hands anchoring themselves on the redhead's hips and pulling her close against herself as Chloe's lips massage her own. Beca successfully manages to match Chloe's mouth, shift for shift, and smirks smugly into the kiss as she teases a moan out from the recesses of the redhead's throat.

Soon – too soon – they pull away because of the pesky need for oxygen, and Beca expects Chloe to pull away completely but then Chloe's mouth continues to trail light kisses from the corner of her lips, along her cheek, and higher up towards her temple where her lips linger before her forehead rests there.

Chloe's breath ghosts shakily across Beca's jawline, and Beca's breathing catches altogether as Chloe's fingers – which she just now notes are lightly scraping along the back of her neck – twitch and she takes a deep breath before whispering.

"I couldn't let another New Year start without knowing what that would feel like."

Beca chooses to not answer with words because she's sure to mess that up and make this whole thing awkward. Instead, she lets actions speak for her because Chloe knows her and can read her actions so much better than any awkward declaration of endless love she'll stumble through.

Plus, she really, really, really wants to kiss Chloe again.

So she does.

Over and over and over again, amid giggles and tickles and stumbles into the New Year.