A/N: I recently watched Pitch Perfect and absolutely fell in love. It's legitimately a problem, although I've got so many fic ideas for this fandom that it could be the first to break my 'one one-shot and done' streak. We'll see. Anyway, I'm a little iffy about how this fic turned out. Let me know what you think!
Disclaimer: I don't own Pitch Perfect. I know; I'm heartbroken, too.
Their fights go a little something like this.
Things start out pretty calm. They're hanging out in her room, watching a movie or emphatically not watching a movie or just enjoying each other's presence. Then, somehow, a conversation starts. More often than not, Jesse is to blame for this, although there's not really much blame to be shared yet.
The catalyst of the argument usually isn't even that important. It might be a prying question from Jesse or a more-cutting-than-usual comment from Beca. It's something that goes ignored about ninety-eight percent of the time, but that extra two percent is when things go wrong. And when things go wrong, it's never "oops, I got annoyed, let me make it up with flowers" wrong. It's "this relationship is headed to hell in a handbasket; who were we kidding when we thought it would work?" wrong.
Beca knows exactly how to push Jesse's buttons and he knows just how to make her blow up, so things escalate pretty fast. (It's worth noting, though, that they're both totally capable of doing worse damage than that, but there are certain lines that they don't cross. Because even in the heat of a blowout fight, they love each other too much to do any real harm.)
You can tell that things are coming to a head when their argument starts to get both quieter and louder. Benji notes that at this point, their fights seem one-sided to the untrained eye. But those who know better (and Benji is including himself in this group, not the former) know that the quieter Jesse's side gets, the worse things are. While Beca tends to yell when she's angry, Jesse's retorts just get shorter and more clipped as things go further downhill.
The fight itself usually draws to a close when one of them makes a comment that's regretted about thirty seconds later, but by then it's too late. Silence falls in the room and it's nothing short of deafening. Jesse's shoulders are slumped and his eyes have darkened. Beca just looks tired and, on occasion, tearful. Every instinct screams that they should comfort one another, but the elusive voice of reason finally makes its appearance at that point, and they realize that sometimes, taking a step back is the best thing you can do.
Jesse leaves without another word, and when he gets back to his room, he loses himself in a movie. Beca watches him go before she distracts herself with beat mixing. They spend their days wondering why they bother if they're just better off alone, but when they try to sleep at night, they remember that "better off alone" doesn't really mean much in the end. His pillows smell so much like her that he can't even concentrate on falling asleep, and she wonders if he's sprayed his cologne on her sheets, because the smell of him is everywhere and she has to literally remind herself that she's mad at him right now.
The fallout lasts anywhere from a day to a week and a half. They never tell their friends that they've fought, because between Beca's unaffected aura and Jesse's general positivity, drama's not really their thing. Either way, the Bellas tend to figure it out pretty quickly. Beca's not one to mope during practice, but there's less bite to her snarky comments and she only jokes around halfheartedly during breaks. (Not to mention Jesse's conspicuous absence at the end of practice, where he usually makes an entrance with a hand clapped over his eyes, loudly proclaiming something to the effect of, "Treble entering enemy territory. Don't shoot! I repeat, do not shoot!")
However long it takes for them to cool down, the way that the fight comes to an end is always the same. One of them is finally struck with the realization that not being together is awful and races to let the other one know. Both of them fumble through apologies and then Jesse insists that they talk it out. Beca always resists, and often resorts to distracting him in more physical ways. (She's successful for a little while, but he gathers his wits about him pretty quickly, and the next time she makes a move, he ignores her. "I've seen this movie," he tells her, "first you distract me with your feminine wiles, then the next thing I know, you're murdering me for my money and running away with the butler.") When that doesn't work, she tries to talk her way out of it, but then Jesse makes his wounded puppy face and after that Beca can never seem to say no.
Normal couples would end it there. For Jesse and Beca, the best part is yet to come: somewhere along the line, after every fight they have begun to make grand gestures of apology to each other in ridiculous, public ways.
It starts as a pretty sincere offer from Jesse. Beca is still sort of withdrawn after their last fight and he tells her that he will do absolutely anything she wants him to do if it means that things can go back to normal. (Somewhat disappointingly, her request is to get piggyback rides everywhere for three days straight- he'd kind of been hoping it would be something he couldn't mention in front of his mother.)
Later on, Jesse boasts that he's clearly got mad groveling skills, since Beca's forgiven him now. In a fit of competitive spirit that would be alarming if he didn't find it so damn cute, Beca declares that she can do better, and a tradition is born. Whenever they make up after a fight, they try to outdo each other with their public displays of forgiveness-fishing. If she pulls a Lloyd Dobbler and stands outside his window with a boombox, he charms his fellow aca-people into doing a flashmob for her. If he sends her flowers in every class, she sends singing apology grams to every one of his lectures, complete with cheesy love notes.
It's the perfect blend of Beca's penchant for mockery and Jesse's unapologetic romanticism, and it apparently works wonders because now their big fights have all but disappeared completely. They're just so damn happy together that one day Amy declares that the couple has officially crossed the border from cute into nauseating. Beca snorts and rolls her eyes before saying, "Oh, yeah. I just scream 'so adorable I'll make you sick', don't I?"
But later on, when she's contentedly wrapped in Jesse's arms as they watch The Godfather, she recalls Amy's words, and Beca thinks that maybe nauseatingly cute isn't such a bad thing to be.
There's still no way in hell she's admitting to that in public, though.