So I finally decided to start the slow process of translating all my fics - or the most recent ones at least. All mistakes are mine, if you see something that's wrong please let me know so I can change it. And if someone wants to be my beta... You'd be doing me a big favor and I'd be forever grateful :)
I stumbled upon this poem on Instagram and the image of Brittany sitting on a roof looking at the stars immediately popped up in my head. I don't know why her precisely, but the longer I thought about it, the more I liked it. So, here it is.
Jesse doesn't exist, okay? I took that creative license. Cursive for flashbacks and the texts on the center are the one that Beca sends.
STARDUST
She liked to sit on rooftops
And go on airplanes because
She believed that if you got
As close as you humanly could
To the space surrounding
Earth, maybe you could catch some of the falling dust
That makes stars so beautiful.
- a.y
Beca Mitchell isn't what society would call normal.
If she were normal, she wouldn't be walking home at 2:33 a.m., lighting up the road with the lantern of her iPhone. If she were normal, she would preserve the 10% of battery that she has left and would turn off the music blasting in her ears through the expensive headphones that she uses to protect herself from the real world and to help her ignore the blanket of silence that covers Barden's campus at night – call her crazy, but she prefers not to hear if someone's going to ambush her.
If she were normal, she would accept the popular belief that making mashups it's just a hobby and she wouldn't be working at a university's radio station that almost no one listens to. If she were normal, she wouldn't have accepted the graveyard shift that means that she goes to bed at five a.m. every day.
But, back to the start. No, someone normal wouldn't be walking back home in the darkness of the night right after there's been a blackout on the entire area of Barden's campus. For starters, someone normal would already be fast asleep.
And she's thought the word normal so many times that it's starting to sound everything but normal.
Okay, she needs to stop. Now.
She shakes herself awake. Her limbs feel heavy, her reflexes are extremely slow and she feels totally drained. The gravel creaks under her boots. She turns the beam of her phone so that she can see where she's stepping on, she would love to get to the Bellas' house unharmed instead of having to crawl there with a sprained ankle. Or God knows what other tragedy could happen to her in this lonely road. Seriously, Beca is really clumsy; to her, this is already putting her life on the line.
She quietly hums the song that has started to play on her headphones. The shuffle option is working great and it's chosen to play all the songs of the new Troye Sivan's album. Shuffle, my ass, thinks Beca.
She sighs with relief when she gets a glimpse of the three-story house. Her iPhone vibrates in her loose hold, startling her. She takes a few seconds to calm her racing heart, that's beating against her ribs as if it wants to crawl right out of her chest. The brunette slows down her pace until she stops at the steps of the porch. She lowers the volume of the music – the soft voice of the singer is quite distracting – and she unlocks the phone.
She has a new message patiently waiting to be read.
Luke WBUJ
last seen today at 2:36
(2.36) Did u leave?
Yup, with no power there's nothing for me to do there
(2.37) Right
(2.37) Did u make sure to close up?
Yes
(2.37) Are u sure?
(2.38) Or do I need to remind u of…
Beca lifts her eyes from the screen although she still hasn't finished reading her boss' message and lets out an annoyed huff. That happened one time. Just once. And a long time ago, by the way! But the British always manages to bring it up without so much of a reason. It reminds Beca of the saying her mother used to say when she was little: 'Give a dog a bad name and hang him'.
Affirmative
I checked twice
Don't worry, you won't find confetti hanging all over the place again
And I won't have to get back at six a.m. just to clean the mess, she thinks darkly.
(2.41) Perfect
(2.41) Thanks Becky
The brunette rolls her eyes and huffs again. Is it really that hard to remember her name correctly? Even after quite some time working together, Luke keeps saying it wrong.
She's about to climb the porch's steps, already picturing her warm and cozy bed when something hard hits her on the forehead. For a moment, she thinks that it might have been a dumb mosquito that hasn't seen her in the darkness, but then she realizes that her phone's screen lights up her face perfectly. Then, she thinks that maybe it's starting to rain. She stretches her hand to see if more drops of water fall on it, even though there's not a single cloud in the sky.
Plock. Other unidentified object hits her head, this time falling into her hair. Plock. In her right cheek. Plock. In her shoulder. Plock. In her left eyebrow – and ouch! That hurt!
She frowns and removes her headphones, pausing the music. Both pissed and confused, she retrieves the object that has attacked her from in-between brown locks and she rolls it in her palm, shinning her iPhone lantern on it.
What the fuck? Since when do M&M's fall from the sky?
If Amy finds out about this…, thinks Beca, amused. She still remembers exactly how crazy her friend gets when those little peanuts covered in colored chocolate are involved. She has never seen Amy vertically run so fast.
Plock. She's brought back to reality by another M&M. This time, the little chocolate ball lands square in her cleavage.
"Ten points!" celebrates someone, the voice coming from somewhere above Beca.
The DJ jumps so high that she's a kind of surprised that she's not standing in the chimney when she opens her eyes again. She looks around, frantic, the beam of her iPhone following her every move.
She's alone.
But it doesn't make sense because she swears she has heard…
"Up here, Becs."
There it is again, Chloe's whisper. She'd recognize her voice anywhere. But where is here exactly, the brunette doesn't know.
Plock. The seventh M&M hits her chin. "Hey!" she complains, too loud for the quiet night.
"Ssshh! You're going to wake the others up," Chloe scolds.
"Then stop attacking me!" hisses Beca.
Chloe doesn't answer. Instead, Beca can hear her muffled laughs. She spins on her feet once more, scrutinizing the shadows, but the gravelly road it's empty, just like the porch. Besides, the M&M's are falling from the sky.
It finally occurs to her to look up and she catches the glint of a smile on the roof just before another little chocolate ball lands on her forehead. "Chloe!" she crosses her arms, scowling.
"C'mon, come up here before I run out of M&M's," simply answers the older girl.
Beca obeys – of course she does, she has never been able to say no to Chloe. She quietly opens the front door, taking off her boots and leaving them against the wall, out of the way. It wouldn't be the first time that the Bellas wake up at the loud thud of one fellow girl lying on the entrance's floor because they have tripped over a shoe.
She climbs up the wooden stairs, jumping over that third step that always creaks. When she reaches the second floor, she navigates to Chloe's room without needing to turn the lights on. She leaves her computer bag on the floor beside the redhead's work table, and she uses her friends' charger to plug in her dying phone.
Through the fully-open window enters a cold breeze of which she's aware now that she's not fully focused on putting one foot in front of the other without tripping. She stops to borrow a sports jacket from Chloe because her plaid shirt it's too thin to protect her from the autumn cold. She lifts the zipper half of the way and the redhead's scent surrounds her like a cloud. Like a hug from her best friend.
She crouches at the windowsill and holds onto the frame to balance herself before stretching her legs out and crossing, first with one, and then with the other, to the other side of the window. She waits for a few seconds, with her eyes closed, for the nervous fluttering in her stomach to calm down. When she feels that she can move without feeling dizzy, she walks over the slate tiles of the roof, half hunched so that if one of her feet slip, she can throw herself to the roof and avoid falling.
Chloe is sitting near the edge, too close to the edge for Beca's liking, but she won't risk complaining and ruin her badass attitude. The redhead has stretched out a red blanket over the roof and she's lying over it wrapped in another blanket. When she hears the DJ's tentative steps, she throws her head back and smiles sweetly.
Carefully, the brunette sits down beside her with a tired sigh. "Hey," she quietly greets.
She accepts with a grateful nod the piece of blanket that her friend lends her, and she covers with it. The warmth that the redhead has already generated heats Beca up quickly. She doesn't bother asking what's Chloe doing up here at 2:55 in the morning, it's not the first time that she's found Chloe on the roof.
In fact, the first time would be forever embedded in Beca's memory. She'll never be able to forget it. Even if only were for the irrational panic that froze her heart for a couple seconds.
"Stacie, can you hurry up? The ice-cream is already melting and they're gonna blame me," complains the DJ peeking out from between the two front seats of the car.
"Excuse me if I don't want a damn pebble to ruin my car paint, Beca," retorts the leggy brunette. To her passengers' despair, she keeps the speedometer needle at 10km/h.
"I think that, if I rode a tortoise, I would go quicker than you," comments Fat Amy with that thoughtful look that Beca soon learned to fear, because it never brings anything good.
"Amy, no offense, but it wouldn't support your weight."
"None taken, my small and incultured friend. It just proves that you haven't seen Australian tortoises, those dinosaurs could be towing a truck and still walk faster than us."
The DJ chooses to pay no mind to the fact that the blonde has completely made up a word - she also learned a long time ago that it's useless to try to correct the Australian's grammar. "Well, going faster than us it's really not that hard," she opts to quip, turning to look at Stacie.
The girl doesn't take the hint, it's like she isn't even listening to them. Her green eyes never leave the gravel road, something that, any other time, Beca would have been thankful for – seriously, Chloe is always looking everywhere but the road, and she doesn't respect the speed limits. Maybe that's why going at 10km/h it's so insufferable to the brunette now that she's gotten used to the redhead being her ride.
The DJ glances over to the McDonald's paper bags that share the back seats with her. The burgers are still hot, but the ice-creams are melting and the water is starting to drip to the bag that contains all the food. She leans over to hurry Stacie for like, the fifteenth time; but something on the roof of the Bellas' house catches her attention. Thinking that it might be a thief, or, even worse, a Treblemaker looking to honor their name and cause some trouble, she reaches for the steering wheel and turns on the car's headlights.
"Beca, stop touching," chastises Stacie, smacking the DJ's hand.
But Beca doesn't fight back. She's pale and feels like she can't breathe.
"Hey, isn't that girl on the roof our Chloe?" asks Amy, hunching over the dashboard to get a better look.
Stacie frowns and slows down -even more- so she can look too. "What the hell is she doing up there?"
"Maybe she wants to do balconing," proposes the Aussie. "But without a balcony. And no pool."
"Amy, don't be silly."
"Oh, what if she's trying to kill herself? Should we stop her or make popcorn and watch?"
"Why would she want to kill herself? It's Chloe that we're talking about! Besides, from up there she would only end up with a broken leg."
Beca watches her friends debate, but she doesn't register the words. Out of the sudden, before she's even aware of what she's doing, she pulls the handle of the door and she shoves it open. She jumps out of the car and trips when her moving body meets the motionless ground; but even though she stumbles, she manages to get back on her feet without falling. She doesn't listen to Stacie's yelling or to Amy acting like an Olympic Game's commentator. She runs towards the house and she stops right under the porch, from where she can see the dangling legs of the redhead.
Her fear urges her to run again. She jumps up the three front steps in one go and she keeps running until she gets to the second floor, unaware of the fact that the Bellas have come out of the living room to find out what was happening.
Beca uses the railing to swivel and propels herself towards Chloe's room. She enters like the Devil is chasing her, slowing down just in time to stop herself from colliding with the window. She barely registers the painful jab that she feels in her stomach every time that she breathes, or that, for starters, she can barely breathe.
Briefly, she makes a mental note to take cardio more seriously from now on.
"Chloe, what are you doing out there?" The redhead turns around with so much energy, so close to the edge of the roof that Beca's fingers turn white for the force with which she's holding the window frame.
"Becs, come sit with me," she pats the empty spot beside her in the red and green blanket with a blinding smile.
The DJ hesitates. She's never liked heights. It's not that she's afraid –she totally is–, it's just that they make her feel unsafe –more like, absolutely terrified. She prefers to have solid ground beneath her Converse, not air.
She musters up all her courage and kneels at the windowsill. Her sight blurs even though she's still literally inside the house. She takes a deep breath and crosses her legs one by one to the other side until she's sitting in the rail.
She feels her knees quiver when she puts all her weight on them, and fleetingly she imagines how funny would it be if the roof broke beneath her and she landed on her ass on the porch. A funny disaster, she thinks as she goes forward inch by inch over the slate. She almost throws herself at Chloe when she's close enough to reach her. Almost. She manages to keep her cool and simply sit down.
"Hey," the redhead greets her with a big smile.
Yellow-ish lights illuminate the gravelly road that connects the lake, the Trebles' and the Bellas'. Red locks look like made of copper and gold and Chloe's impossibly blue eyes shimmer in the low light. For a moment there, Beca completely forgets what happened to get her to be in a roof.
But then she remembers and feels her stomach drop.
"Chloe, I want you to know that, no matter what happened, I'm here for you," her voice trembles when she catches a glimpse of the fall to the ground, so she can only talk in a raspy whisper.
The redhead looks puzzled. "What do you me-? Oh." Then she bursts out laughing. "Oh, Becs, I'm not going to jump. It's just that, sometimes I need a break from so much craziness, you know?" she signals with her head to the house.
The DJ looks at her, befuddled. Now she's the one confused and –why deny it?– a little hurt. She really feared for her friend's life, and know she's laughing at her face? After a sprint of which even Aubrey would be proud of?
Chloe must notice because she swallows her laughter, though her chest still shakes from time to time. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she apologizes. And she's being honest, Beca can see it. "I didn't mean to scare you."
"I wasn't…" starts to deny the brunette.
"Although it's sweet of you to worry about me like that," continues the Bella as if she hadn't been interrupted.
Well, if Chloe thinks it's sweet… Maybe Beca won't complain that hard. Or maybe she will totally forget about complaining at all. The brunette has never really been able to think clearly when she's this close to the redhead. And now that she's hypnotized by her impossibly baby-blues and she can't see the fall that stretches out at their feet, she's aware for the first time of how closely they're sitting.
Chloe keeps cutting the distance and the brunette completely forgets how to breathe. Damn, this is too much, her brain is about to break down.
The space between them disappears and the redhead's lips stay a few seconds longer than it's usual against Beca's cheek.
The DJ feels her face heat up.
"Thank you," whispers the redhead without lifting her lips from the brunette's skin. Every caress of her lips against her skin sends a wave of tingles up Beca's body. Then Chloe breaks away from her and smiles like nothing happened.
Beca takes a deep breath, looking away from her friend -and almost immediately regretting her decision when she sees the distance separating her from the ground. "Um… Chlo" she tries to speak, but her throat is suddenly dry so it sounds more like a squeak. "Think we can go back inside now?"
"What?" asks the redhead, distracted. She seems to register Beca's request a second later, and she frowns before nodding and smiling. "Of course."
She gets up with such grace that the DJ feels envious and fear at the same time. Because, really, those sudden moves so close to the edge should be forbidden. In fact, she's sure that it has to exist some law in the Constitution of Houses of Atlanta that expressly forbids the act of standing on roofs. She has to find it and show it to Chloe.
Once back at the redhead's room, Beca has to resist the urge to kiss the floor and thank the aca-gods for helping her survive such risky experience. The Bellas' co-captain leaves the blanket carefully folded in the closet before intertwining her arm with Beca's and dragging her downstairs because "mmmm smells like McDonald's and I'm so hungry."
A yawn brings the DJ back to the present. She rubs her eyes, forgetting she still has her make-up on. She shrugs, it's not like someone's going to see her up here in the darkness.
"You're home early," says Chloe in a whisper. The brunette maps the sky with her eyes before locking them with the redhead's, and she feels like there are galaxies hidden in those baby blues more worthy of being discovered than the ones in the universe.
"Yeah, there's been a blackout. Haven't you noticed?"
Beca is the kind of person that, a meteorite could fall right in front of her at the campus and she wouldn't notice unless someone showed it to her or she crashed right into it. And, even then, she'd probably apologize, saying something along the lines of "sorry, dude" and she'd go on walking without looking up from her phone.
Chloe, though, has the personality of a six-year-old, constantly wanting to meet new people, laughing and asking questions. Chloe is the kind of person that knows what kind of food eats the cat of the graveyard shift janitor. And not randomly, but because she's interested. That's why the brunette thinks that it's weird that her friend hasn't noticed that the power's out.
"Of course I noticed, my laptop died in the middle of a The 100 episode." The DJ chuckles, it's so Chloe to find out about the blackout when her Mac runs out of battery and the plugs don't work. "It's not funny, it was so interesting!" the redhead grumbles in an adorable way. "Clarke and Lexa had just…"
"No, no, no! Shut up!" the brunette interrupts her, covering her ears and closing her eyes. "No spoilers!"
"You sure you don't wanna know? 'Cause–" Beca covers Chloe's mouth, who's smiling devilishly, with her hands before more harmful words can come out. She feels something wet against the palm of her hand and it takes her a second too long to realize that it's a tongue.
"Ew!" she exclaims, cleaning her hand in the redhead's sweatshirt. "What are you, five? Hey, wait a minute…" she squints when she looks for the first time, really looks, at the printed letters on the clothing. "Isn't that my sweatshirt?"
"Yes," answers Chloe without a hint of regret. "And that's my jacket" she nods her head towards Beca's body.
"But you have the exact same sweatshirt in maroon."
"I know, but I like yours better."
Ugh, it really is impossible for Beca to say no to the redhead. They fall back into a comfortable silence while their eyes wander around the wide sky, the stars are shining like they've never seen them shine before now that there's no light chasing the shadows away.
It's stunning.
Without being aware of it, Beca searches through her memory's drawers, looking for the stories that her father used to read to her from a Greek mythology book before going to sleep. Before the fights started, before the divorce. When her childhood was full of magic and T-Rexes – she wasn't a unicorns, fairies and rainbows kind of girl. But she did believe that her parents were the living proof that true love existed and the idea that, one day, all of that could disappear had never crossed her mind.
She remembers getting under the heavy winter blankets of her bed, her teddy bear hugged tightly against her chest – his name was Leonardo, Leo for short, and she still has him. Eyes wide open, she watched her father making a fool of himself while acting as the different characters of the story, using silly voices that never failed in their attempt at making little Beca laugh. She also remembers lying down in the humid grass of the backyard and falling asleep while waiting for a shooting star to cross the sky, her mother reading a book on the hammock while her father whispered at the kid's ear the constellation's names and the stories hiding behind them.
Past times. Happy times.
"You okay?" asks Chloe in a barely audible way. But it's enough to get Beca out of her melancholic trip before she's in too deep.
She doesn't trust her voice, so she simply nods.
Chloe can read her friend as easily as she reads fashion magazines or a good novel. She knows every grimace, every feeling hidden beneath a sarcastic answer. She knows that Beca isn't saying the truth right now. The DJ's body language is screaming in at least fifty different ways that she's not okay, and the worry that Chloe feels for her friend pushes her to ask and ask, and ask; even if that means pissing the brunette off. Because she knows that, eventually, Beca's resolve will crumble and she'll tell her what's bothering her.
But she also knows that, sometimes, it's better to leave things as they are. So she returns Beca the favor and lets her be. In the end, the brunette hasn't asked why she's awake so late, or why has she ran away from her bedroom and looked for the comfort of the stars.
So she lets it slide. For the moment.
"Do you know why I like to come out here?" Beca turns her head to look at her, taken by surprise by the sudden question.
"To run away?" the brunette answers, a little hesitant. "'Cause, sometimes the Bellas are a little…" she searches for a mild way of putting it, "too much."
Chloe's smile has a hint of sadness in it. "That's one reason," she admits with a shrug. "But the real reason it's different."
"Okay…" the DJ prolongs the vocals, insecure.
Usually, if Chloe wants to say something, she just blurts it out. All in one go, without beating the bush. The few times that she dances around a certain topic it's because she's nervous, uncertain or she doesn't know how the others are going to react.
Minutes go by but the redhead doesn't try to start talking again – it's so weird that Beca rolls over so she's lying on her side. This way she can see Chloe's face without straining her neck, the older girl's profile being basically the only thing she can look at because they're really close to each other.
Midnight blue eyes roam over a defined nose, the small scar at the forehead illuminated by the moon. Long eyelashes curve as if they're trying to reach the sky, and the baby blues that have the DJ fascinated since day one are even lighter than usual. In that exact moment, Beca notices for the first time that Chloe's make-up it's smudged at the corners of her eyes, like when you hurriedly dry the tears from your face. She's sure that, if there was some more light, she would clearly see the signs that the redhead has been crying.
It's weird that that knowledge awakens something inside her, something that shakes between her ribs. Similar to the rage of a caged beast, but also like the twinge of worry and sadness that you feel when something that you believed to be a constant in your life, suddenly changes. Her first instinct is to hug Chloe until whatever she's going through goes away. Her second instinct is to distract her with something silly just to make her smile. What she really does, however, it's completely different.
She stays silent and waits. She's going to keep up with the redhead's pace, she's not going to pressure her.
Chloe keeps her eyes fixated on the starred sky despite the fact that she can feel Beca's intense scrutiny. The words float around her head like wild butterflies that run away every time she tries to catch them. And although she knows that the brunette isn't particularly patient and she's making an effort to wait for her, she doesn't feel the need to fill the silence with small talk.
"I know this may sound stupid, but it comforts me to know that the stars are always going to be there even though they are free to go to any part of the universe. It's like…" the redhead shrugs, "if they can do the same thing day after day, it doesn't matter that I'm still here."
And Beca finally gets it. She's suddenly aware of which day it is, she knows that today they gave the finals' results. She doesn't need a Nobel to guess that Chloe isn't going to graduate this year, she probably failed Russian Lit again.
Beca also knows that the redhead's father calls every night at nine, on this day, to hear her daughter's grades. "Did he get too mad?" she asks almost fearful of what answer she's going to get.
"No," the Bellas co-captain shakes her head. "But he doesn't have to get angry, you know? He doesn't have to say anything, in fact, he never does." Baby blues search for darker ones and focus intently on them. "Some silences speak louder than words. He might not say it to me but I know that, with every year that I spend here at Barden, I'm disappointing him."
Beca watches how Chloe's eyes are gradually filling with tears and she thinks, frenetic, of a way to stop them. She was never good at dealing with someone else's tears. For God's sake, she doesn't even know what to do when she is the one that's crying!
In a frenzy, she grabs hold of the redhead's cheeks and collects her tears with her thumbs. She moves closer until hers and Chloe's foreheads are millimeters away from touching, and she then shakes her head.
"Your father loves you, he's probably just worried. You know how parent's minds work, he must have imagined a hundred scenarios to explain why you aren't able to pass Russian Lit and I'm sure that none of them are pleasant."
"He told me that the Bellas are a distraction. That I should leave them because the rehearsals take away the time that I should be spending studying."
To Chloe, the Bellas are everything. Literally everything. Asking her to give them up it's like asking her to give up her heart. It would kill her and, unfortunately, it's not just a metaphor.
"You only need to organize yourself," answers Beca after a moment of doubt. "X hours for the Bellas, x hours for studying. You show it to your father, you prove to him that you're perfectly capable of handling doing both of them. And problem solved. I can help you if you want me to."
Is it possible to overdose on hope? Because the redhead's eyes show so much hope that Beca seriously considers the possibility. But what's even worse is that it's directed at her, Beca Mitchell, the most pessimistic person to ever live in the world.
However, she's starting to realize that she would do anything for Chloe. Highlight the anything.
"My Russian Lit professor really believed that I was going to pass this semester, his face when I gave him the test and it was blank…" the redhead's voice breaks. She shakes her head, looking down as if she's ashamed of herself. "Lately I have the feeling that I keep letting people down. And tonight, after my father said goodbye to me as if he was talking to the delivery man and not her daughter… I just couldn't take it anymore… Coming out here frees me from the feeling of suffocating. I look at the sky, so big, so unreachable, and I imagine myself up there and everyone else down here."
"Sounds lonely," whispers Beca without thinking.
"It is," a sad smile breaks through the tears that freely fall down the redhead's face. "But I'm hoping to catch some of the stardust that floats in the air."
"Stardust? Isn't that what Tinkerbell gave to Wendy and the Lost Boys?"
Chloe chuckles before shaking her head. "No, that was pixie dust. When I was younger, at a science class they told us about the stars and how they release dust into the universe. I don't know why, but that little fact stuck with me all through the years. Since then, when I'm having a bad day, I go up to the highest point I can reach, so that the dust that makes the stars look so beautiful can fall on me."
The brunette doesn't answer. It's not like she knows what to say. She feels that whatever she can come up with, will sound belittling and that's not what she wants to express.
She lays on her back again and looks at the stars with new eyes. She sees them shinning in the darkness of the night, not letting themselves get outshined by the moon. Unlike the former, they do have their own light. Stars don't depend on other things to be beautiful.
Somehow, they remind her of Chloe. She can't help but steal a glance out of the corner of her eye: the redhead is also lying on her back with her eyes trained in the distance. Leftovers of her tears stain her cheeks but that doesn't make her less gorgeous. They might even have the opposite effect. They make her more human. Her hair looks like fire, reflecting the weak light of the night. Her incredible blue eyes seem to have a life of their own, ever-changing, ever-expressive.
Beca thinks then about how Chloe's smile is able to light up a whole room. With her bubbly personality, she can cheer up even the bluest person. With a hug, she makes you feel secure and loved.
"You don't need it," she says abruptly.
"What?" asks the redhead, a little confused.
"You don't need the stardust," explains Beca. "You don't need no one's or anything's help to be more beautiful, or better, or different from who you already are." There, in the solitude of the roof and the darkness that surrounds them, the silence of the campus and the protective blanket of stars above them, the brunette feels capable of anything. Again, highlight the anything.
She locks eyes with the surprised –and moved– baby blues of her best friend. She hoists herself up with her elbow, ignoring the sky because who needs stars when you have Chloe Beale by your side? Then, she caresses the redhead's cheek with her thumb, and she can't help but let her eyes wander to Chloe's lips before snapping back to hypnotic baby blues.
"You're already a star, Chlo," she whispers.
Beca couldn't have anticipated her best friend's reaction.
Before the brunette knows what's happening, she feels a hand at the nape of her head pull her down with so much force that she has no other choice but to give in. Although she couldn't have fought back even if she wanted because it all happened so fast that she only registers a blur of motion. Then, all her brain activity stops abruptly when Chloe's lips touch hers.
The DJ stays frozen in place for what seems like an eternity, but which probably are only a couple of seconds. She comes back to her senses just in time to capture back those lips that have the intention of kissing her and then disappear. She answers with all the desire that's been growing inside of her after years of denial.
This kiss tastes like freedom. Like tears. Like stardust.
"If you tell anyone what I said, I'm going to kill you," threatens Beca when they break apart to breathe.
"Your secret's safe with me," giggles Chloe.
The brunette brings their mouths together again, but when she tries to move to avoid hurting her elbow with the edge of a slate, her body slides down just a couple inches - but it's enough to make her heart almost jump out of her mouth.
The redhead feels her tense up and she moves away to look at Beca, worried. "What's wrong?"
Beca licks her lips nervously, looking around as if she's just remembered where she is exactly. "Do you think–? Can we go inside, please?" she pleads with her eyes closed.
"Are you afraid of heights?" mocks Chloe.
"Chlo…"
"Okay, okay, let's go," grants the redhead when she realizes that it's better not to tease the DJ with this particular topic.
She gets up and picks up the blanket in which they've been wrapped and the one on top of which they had been lying. She folds them carelessly and grabs the brunette's hand, giving her a soft squeeze before pulling her towards her bedroom window.
When they're going to step side again, Chloe steals one more kiss from Beca. "Thanks," she says. "For calling me a star."
The DJ closes her eyes and groans, "C'mon, you said that you weren't going to bring it up again."
The redhead turns around, already inside the house, and gives Beca a cheeky smile. "I said that I wouldn't tell other people about it. But it's only us here and, oh, I'm going to bring it up as much as I can. It's not every day that the Beca Mitchell gets all cheesy."
Beca grimaces but she soon forgets all about it when Chloe pushes her towards her bed. Well, if this is the outcome, the brunette thinks she can handle it.
THE END