The scene before Chloe and Stacey as they came home from last minute Christmas shopping was one that can only be described as comically chaotic and not the least bit, confusing. Beca was standing, or rather attempting to balance, on the back of the couch with her pajama pants rolled all the way up her thighs, her hair sticking out in all directions from her falling ponytail, a pink and white polka dot spatula in one hand and her treasured laptop in the other arm, gripped tightly to her chest. That image alone made the girls stop dead in their tracks in curiosity and a tad bit of concern to be honest, but seeing Fat Amy…. Honestly, there were no words, or maybe there were just too many words, not the least of which was "terrifying." Fat Amy stood in the middle of what was once a quaint living room that now resembled a war zone of sorts. She was, for lack of a better term, armed with a pool net in one hand and one of the group's glittery fire batons in the other. Her head was covered with Cynthia Rose's rainbow scooter helmet with what looked like a wash cloth duct taped to the back of it, covering her neck. Where she found the knee-high camo wading boots is still a mystery, but the purple plunger tucked into the back of her belt definitely belonged to them, along with the plastic trashcan lid they used to slide down the stairs tied tightly around her chest.
"Don't worry Captain," the Tasmanian drawled, "I once spent three months in the Outback with Steve Irwin hunting poisonous snakes. I will find it!"
"What the –" Chloe started but was drown out by the screams of the two startled Bellas.
"Get back! Save yourselves!" cried Fat Amy. "Oh, and also, if you could save my lasagna on the kitchen table," she finished in a much calmer tone.
"What exactly is going on here?" asked Stacey, eyes taking in the room and her two housemates.
"Well I was upstairs going over old footage of my 5 year old birthday party where we were wrestling wild hogs with the local Aboriginals, when I heard the Captain here screeching the song of the pterodactyl and –"
"I was NOT screeching! I do not screech. Ever." Beca declared, cutting her off.
Fat Amy side-eyed her and continued on, "right, then it wasn't you who was screeching the aca-lord's name? Must have been the mouse."
"MOUSE?!" shouted Chloe and Stacey in unison, making the other two jump and nearly causing Beca to fall off the back in a shriek before Chloe rushed forward to brace her, hands on Beca's hips.
"Ok, so let me get this straight," Chloe started, eyes taking in the scene and her teammates, "you turned our living room into the final battle at Hogwarts because of a mouse?"
Beca scoffed at that and tried to shimmy out of Chloe's hold but the movement only caused her to wobble and almost topple if Chloe hadn't just held on tighter, so she gave up and looked over her shoulder at her, narrowing her eyes "It wasn't just a mouse. It was a giant mouse with evil eyes and ill intentions!"
"Ill intentions, huh?" smiled Chloe, recognizing immediately that the smile was not at all welcome by the tiny Bella she was holding upright and bit her lip trying to hid it. Too late.
"Yes, ill intentions!" she barked back. "What kind of good intentions could a mouse possibly have? It was here for destruction only."
"Clearly you have never seen Cinderella," added Stacey, "but in all seriousness, where the hell is the mouse? I am all about furry creatures as long as they are accounted for," she finished while looking around for the mouse. "How did it get in here in the first place?"
"It is probably Lily's. She mentioned something about mazes and cheese-mines, but you know Lily," Chloe said leaving the sentence hanging. The others nodded in agreement, knowing full well that Lily said the strangest and sometimes frightening things but they always wrote it off hoping that it was just weird commentary and not actual truths.
"OMG OMG OMG!" Beca shouted in between noises that have probably never been made by a human before and was hopping on the spot, pointing to the giant-sized beanbag chair across the room. They all turned to look and sure enough, a small white mouse stood defiantly on top of the bag chair. What happened next was something out of a Three Stooges movie. Fat Amy threw herself forward, arms and legs sprawled, screaming like a banshee and landed on the beanbag chair launching the unsuspecting mouse many feet into the air, arching towards Beca and Chloe. Beca screamed one constant high note while running in place on the back of the couch while Chloe held on tight to her, wide blue eyes following the path of the mouse in its journey towards them. Seemingly out of nowhere a slim hand snatched the mouse out of the air mid-fall, like a ninja, and the living room felt silent immediately. All eyes fell on Lily, standing there with the mouse clutched gently to her chest and smiling down at it. She then looked up and around at all of them smiling, and mumbled what sounded something like "you found him," "phase 6," "brothers," and heaven forbid, "snakes."
Beca was definitely going to have to have a talk with the Bellas about what particular animals were allowed in the house as she was not about to wake up cuddling next to a python some morning. Not that Beca cuddles, because she doesn't. But that's beside the point.
"Stacey, could you help the all-mighty mouse hunter up? And Fat Amy, just make sure you put all that stuff back from wherever the hell you got it, ok?" Chloe said from her place behind Beca. The Bellas did as they were told and walked out of the living room removing armor as they went.
The room fell quiet and Beca became acutely aware of Chloe's proximity and the strong hands at her hips and felt her face grow warmer. "So rogue a mouse is all it takes to rile the tiny champion, huh?" she heard Chloe say behind her, a smile in her voice.
"From now on we will refer to it as 'the mouse who shall not be named' and we will never speak of this again. Understood?" she answered, trying to put as much authority her voice as possible, knowing at once she failed as her command was met with a melodic laugh that sent shivers down her spine. Then she felt Chloe's hand move from her hip and start to pull down the pant legs Beca had rolled up in fear of it running up one of them. The trail of her fingers made down her legs left goosebumps and a line of fire in their wake. She shakes her head slightly to clear the fog in her brain that she has recently named "Chloe's fog" since the red head is the only one who can jam her brain quite like that. Well maybe the Kommissar but that is different. She is an enemy of the state of Bellas and a beautiful Amazon woman and that is just the fog of aca-war, obviously.
"I believe it is safe to come down, but if you're still frightened I could look and see if there are any scary lady bugs running round in here." Beca is pulled out of her thoughts as Chloe reaches to take the tiny spatula out of her hand.
"I should smack you with this," she says, glaring at Chloe.
Chloe take Beca's hips in both hands again and pulls her down and back against her, feet still on the back of the couch, and hums her reply in Beca's ear, "I just might let you." The noise that came out of Beca in response to that is also something she would like to add to the list of "things about this evening of which we will never speak of again" but Chloe just laughed and planted a quick kiss on her cheek.
"I hate you" but Beca knows she doesn't mean it. Chloe knows she doesn't mean it. So it's no surprise when Beca finishes pulling her legs off the back of the chair and turns to face her that Chloe is just standing there with 100 watt smile…omg did she really just say that…this whole evening is full of horrible things apparently.
"You love me."
"Whatever. You're so weird." Rolling her eyes in an attempt to gain some self-respect back after tonight's events, she turns to head upstairs but quickly realizes that she is being closely followed by Chloe, she turned to her with a quizzical look, "What are you doing, I thought you were wrapping presents with Stacey tonight?"
Chloe stopped and gave her a look that implies she is just a cute little child with cute little questions and Beca knew she was going to regret asking that question. "Isn't it obvi? I am going to check under your bed and make sure there are no monsters so that you can sleep soundly tonight!" And there it was.
After more proclamations of hate and threats, Beca left Chloe standing at the bottom of the staircase laughing until there were tears streaming down her face.